PQ   2625  A95  S55 
UNIVERSITY    OF   CALIFORNIA     SAN   DIEGO 


3   1822  01188  9987 


pf^^- 


W^w^w^^^W^WS' 


VNIVE^StT^  OF 
fiAUFORNfA 

SAN  DIEGO 


lllillilillliilliUIIIHIII 
3  1822  01188  9987 


P6< 


I ; 


THE     SILENCE    OF 
COLONEL   BRAMBLE 


THE  SILENCE  OF 
COLONEL    BRAMBLE 

BY    ANDRE    MAUROIS 

TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH 
BY  THURFRIDA  WAKE;  VERSES 
TRANSLATED    BY    WILFRID    JACKSON 


NEW  YORK:     JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 
LONDON:    JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 

MCMXX 


Copyright,  1920, 
By  John  Lane  Compaky 


TO 
MY  WIFE 


BIOGRAPHICAL  INTRODUCTION 

In  its  original  French  "  Les  Silences  du 
Colonel  Bramble "  has  already  run  through 
seventeen  editions,  and  a  second  edition  has 
been  called  for  in  English  within  a  very  short 
time  of  publication.  The  success  of  the  book 
has  naturally  brought  many  inquiries  as  to 
who  is  this  brilliant  young  author  who  has  thus 
suddenly  leaped  into  fame.  In  answer  to  in- 
quiries, M.  "Andre  Maurois  "  writes: 

"  My    family    comes    from    Alsace.      My 

grandfather  had  a  factory  at  Strasbm*g,  but 

the  war  of  1870  compelled  him  to  leave  Alsace 

in  order  to  escape   becoming   German.     He 

brought  his  workmen  with  him,  and  set  up  his 

factory   at   Elbeuf   in   Nonnandy,   and   was 

awarded  the  Legion  of  Honour  for  having 

thus  saved  a  French  industry. 

vii 


viii  Biographical  Introduction 

"  I  was  born  in  Normandy  in  1885.  In 
1902  I  passed  my  licence  es  lettres  with  hon- 
ours— equivalent  to  your  '  First '  at  Oxford. 
In  1903  I  received  the  prij?  dfhonneur  for  Phi- 
losophy at  the  competitive  examinations  open 
to  all  the  Lycees  of  France — for  this  there  is 
no  English  equivalent. 

"  I  wished  to  write,  but  I  was  needed  at  the 
factory  as  my  father  was  no  longer  young,  so 
I  gave  up  my  ambitions  and  spent  eight  years 
in  business.  During  this  period  I  married 
Mile,  de  Sienkievicz,  a  daughter  of  Count  C. 
de  Sienkievicz. 

"  Then  came  the  war,  and  I  was  appointed 
interpreter  with  the  IXth  (Scotch)  Division. 
I  was  with  them  at  Loos  and  Ypres,  and  was 
given  the  D.  C.  M.  Finally  I  was  promoted 
to  the  rank  of  lieutenant  and  liaison  officer. 
I  had,  however,  been  ill,  and  was  sent  to  H.Q. 
Lines  of  Communication  at  Abbeville,  where 
I  remained  until  the  end  of  the  war. 

"  Military  life  gave  me  sufficient  leisure  to 
enable  me  to  take  up  again  my  original  tastes. 


^biographical  Introduction  ix 

and  thus,  while  I  was  with  the  Scotch  Division, 
*  Bramble  *  was  written.  Then  at  Abbeville  I 
wrote  another  book,  called  *  Ni  Ange,  ni  Bete,' 
which  has  recently  appeared  in  France.  I 
am  now  engaged  on  another  book." 


THE    SILENCE    OE 
COLONEL  BRAMBLE 


THE  SILENCE  OF  COLONEL 
BRAMBLE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  Highland  Brigade  was  holding  its 
regimental  l)oxing  match  in  a  fine  old 
Flemish  barn  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Poperinghe.     At  the  end  of  the  evening  the 
general  got  on  to  a  chair  and,  in  a  clear,  audi- 
ble voice,  said: 

"  Gentlemen,  we  have  to-day  seen  some  ex- 
cellent fighting,  from  which  I  think  we  may 
leiirn  some  useful  lessons  for  the  more  impor- 
tant contest  that  we  shall  shortly  resume;  we 
must  keep  our  heads,  we  must  keep  our  eyes 
open,  we  must  hit  seldom  but  hit  hard,  and 
we  must  fight  to  a  finish." 

Three  cheers  made  the  old  barn  shake. 
The  motors  purred  at  the  door.  Colonel 
Bramble,  Major  Parker  and  the  French  inter- 
preter, Aurelle,  went  on  foot  to  their  billets 
among  the  hops  and  beetroot  fields. 

13 


14       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  We  are  a  curious  nation,"  said  Major 
Parker.  *'  To  interest  a  Frenchman  in  a  box- 
ing match  you  must  tell  him  that  his  national 
honour  is  at  stake.  To  interest  an  English- 
man in  a  war  you  need  only  suggest  that  it 
is  a  kind  of  a  boxing  match.  Tell  us  that  the 
Hun  is  a  barbarian,  we  agree  politely,  but  tell 
us  that  he  is  a  bad  sportsman  and  you  rouse 
the  British  Empire." 

**  It  is  the  Hun's  fault,"  said  the  colonel 
sadly,  "  that  war  is  no  longer  a  gentleman's 
game." 

"  We  never  imagined,"  continued  the  ma- 
jor, "  that  such  cads  existed.  Bombing  open 
towns  is  nearly  as  unpardonable  as  fishing  for 
trout  with  a  worm,  or  shooting  a  fox." 

"  You  must  not  exaggerate,  Parker,"  said 
the  colonel  calmly.  "  They  are  not  as  bad  as 
that  yet." 

Then  he  asked  Aurelle  politely  if  the  box- 
ing had  amused  him. 

"  I  particularly  admired,  sir,  the  sporting 
discipline  of  your  men.  During  the  boxing, 
the  Highlanders  behaved  as  if  they  were  in 
church." 

"  The  true  sporting  spirit  has  always  some- 
thing religious  about  it,"  said  the  major.     "  A 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       15 

few  years  ago  when  the  New  Zealand  football 
team  visited  England,  and  from  the  first  match 
beat  the  English  teams,  the  country  was  as 
upset  as  if  we  had  lost  this  war.  Every  one 
in  the  streets  and  trains  went  about  with  long 
faces.  Then  the  New  Zealanders  beat  Scot- 
land, then  Ireland;  the  end  of  the  world  had 
come!  However,  there  remained  the  Welsh. 
On  the  day  of  the  match  there  were  one  hun- 
dred thousand  persons  on  the  ground.  You 
know  that  the  Welsh  are  deeply  religious  and 
that  their  national  anthem,  '  Land  of  our 
Fathers,'  is  also  a  prayer.  When  the  two 
teams  arrived  the  whole  crowd,  men  and 
women,  exalted  and  confident,  sang  this  hymn 
to  God  before  the  battle,  and  the  New  Zea- 
landers were  beaten.  Ah,  we  are  a  great 
nation ! " 

"  Indeed,  yes,"  said  Aurelle,  quite  overcome, 
*'  you  are  a  great  nation."  He  added,  after 
a  moment's  silence,  "  But  you  were  also  quite 
right  just  now  when  you  said  you  were  a 
curious  nation  in  some  things,  and  your  opin- 
ion of  people  astonishes  us  sometimes.  You 
say,  *  Brown  looks  an  idiot,  but  he's  not,  he 
played  cricket  for  Essex.'  Or,  'At  Eton  we 
took  him  for  a  fool,  but  at  Oxford  he  sur- 


1 6       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

prised  us.  Do  you  know  he  is  plus  four  at 
golf,  and  won  the  high  jump? 

"Well?"  said  the  colonel. 

"  Don't  you  think,  sir,  that  cleverness — " 

"  I  hate  clever  people —  Oh,  I  beg  your 
pardon,  messiou." 

"  That's  very  kind  of  you,  sir,"  said  Aurelle. 

"  Glad  you  take  it  like  that,"  growled  the 
colonel  into  his  moustache. 

He  spoke  seldom  and  always  in  short  sen- 
tences, but  Aurelle  had  learnt  to  appreciate 
his  dry  and  vigorous  humour  and  the  charm- 
ing smile  which  often  lit  up  his  rugged  coun- 
tenance. 

"  But  don't  you  find  yourself,  Aurelle," 
went  on  Major  Parker,  "  that  intelhgence 
is  over-estimated  with  you?  It  is  certainly 
more  useful  to  know  how  to  box  than  how  to 
write.  You  would  like  Eton  to  go  in  for  noth- 
ing but  learning?  It  is  just  like  asking  a 
trainer  of  racehorses  to  be  interested  in  cir- 
cus horses.  We  don't  go  to  school  to  learn, 
but  to  be  soaked  in  the  prejudices  of  our 
class,  without  which  we  should  be  useless  and 
unhappy.  We  are  like  the  young  Persians 
Herodotus  talks  about,  who  up  to  the  age  of 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble        17 

twenty  only  learnt  three  scienees:  to  ride,  to 
shoot  and  to  tell  the  truth." 

"  That  may  be,"  said  Aurelle,  "  but  just 
see,  major,  how  inconsistent  you  are.  You 
despise  learning  and  you  quote  Herodotus. 
Better  still,  I  caught  you  the  other  day  in  the 
act  of  reading  a  translation  of  Xenophon  in 
your  dug-out.  Very  few  Frenchmen,  I  assure 
vou— " 

*'  That's  quite  different,"  said  the  major. 
"  The  Greeks  and  Romans  interest  us,  not  as 
objects  of  study,  but  as  ancestors  and  sports- 
men. We  are  the  direct  heirs  of  the  mode  of 
life  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
Xenophon  amuses  me  because  he  is  a  perfect 
type  of  the  English  gentleman,  with  his  hunt- 
ing and  fishing  stories,  and  descriptions  of  bat- 
tles. When  I  read  in  Cicero:  *  Scandal  in 
the  Colonial  Office.  Grave  accusations  against 
Sir  Marcus  Varro,  Governor- General  of 
Sicily,'  you  can  well  understand  that  that 
sounds  to  me  like  old  faniily  history.  And 
who  was  your  Alcibiades,  pray,  but  a  Winston 
Churchill,  without  the  hats  ?  " 

The  scenery  round  them  was  very  pictur- 
esque:  the  Mont  des  Cats,  the  Mont  Rouge, 


i8       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

and  the  Mont  Noir  made  a  framework  for 
the  hea^y,  motionless  clouds  of  an  old  Dutch 
painting.  The  peasants'  houses  with  their 
weather-beaten,  thatched  roofs  faded  into  the 
surrounding  fields ;  their  dull  walls  had  turned 
the  colom-  of  yellow  clay.  The  grey  shut- 
ters bordered  with  green  struck  the  only  vivid 
and  human  note  in  this  kingdom  of  the 
earth. 

The  colonel  pointed  with  his  cane  to  a  new 
mine  crater;  but  Major  Parker,  sticking  to 
his  point,  went  on  with  his  favourite  subject: 

'*  The  greatest  service  which  sport  has  ren- 
dered us  is  that  it  has  saved  us  from  intellec- 
tual culture.  Luckily,  one  hasn't  time  for 
everything,  and  golf  and  tennis  cut  out  read- 
ing.    We  are  stupid — '* 

"Nonsense,  major!"  said  Aurelle. 

"  We  are  stupid,"  emphatically  repeated 
Major  Parker,  who  hated  being  contradicted, 
*'  and  it  is  a  great  asset.  When  we  are  in 
danger  we  don't  notice  it,  because  we  don't 
reflect;  so  we  keep  cool  and  come  out  of  it 
nearly  always  with  honour." 

"  Always,"  amended  Colonel  Bramble  with 
his  Scotch  curtness. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble        19 

And  Aurelle,  hopping  agilely  over  the  enor- 
mous ruts  by  the  side  of  these  two  Goliaths, 
realized  more  clearly  than  ever  that  this  war 
would  end  well- 


CHAPTER  II 

"y^LEAR  the  table,"  said  Colonel  Bram- 
Ki  ble  to  the  orderlies.  "  Bring  the  rum, 
a  lemon,  some  sugar  and  hot  water, 
and  keep  some  more  boiling.  Then  tell  my 
batman  to  give  me  the  gramophone  and  the 
box  of  records." 

This  gramophone,  a  gift  to  the  Highlanders 
from  a  very  patriotic  old  lady,  was  the  colo- 
nel's pride.  He  had  it  carried  about  after  him 
everywhere  and  treated  it  with  delicate  care, 
feeding  it  every  month  with  fresh  records. 

"  Messiou,"  he  said  to  Aurelle,  "  what 
would  you  Hke?  'The  Bing  Boys,'  *  Destiny 
Waltz,'  or  '  Caruso.'  " 

Major  Parker  and  Dr.  O' Grady  solemnly 
consigned  Edison  and  all  his  works  to  a  hotter 
place;  the  padre  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven. 

"  Anything  you  like,  sir,"  said  Aurelle,  "  ex- 
cept *  Caruso.'  " 

"Why?"  said  the  colonel.  "It's  a  very 
good  record,  it  cost  twentj'^-two  shillings.    But 


20 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       21 

first  of  all  you  must  hear  my  dear  Mrs.  Finzi- 
Magrini  in  '  La  Tosca.'  Doctor,  please  reg- 
ulate it,  I  ean't  see  very  well — Speed  61. 
Don't  scratch  the  record,  for  God's  sake!" 

He  sank  down  on  his  biscuit  boxes,  ar- 
ranged his  back  comfortably  against  a  heap 
of  sacks,  and  shut  his  eyes.  His  rugged  face 
relaxed.  The  padre  and  the  doctor  were 
playing  chess,  and  Major  Parker  was  filling 
in  long  returns  for  brigade  headquarters. 
Over  a  little  wood,  torn  to  bits  by  shells,  an 
aeroplane  was  sailing  home  among  fleecy 
white  clouds  in  a  lovely  pale-green  sky. 
Aurelle  began  a  letter. 

"  Padre,"  said  the  doctor,  "  if  you  are  go- 
ing to  the  division  to-morrow,  ask  them  to  send 
me  some  blankets  for  our  dead  Boches.  You 
saw  the  one  we  buried  this  morning?  The 
rats  had  half  eaten  him.  It's  indecent. 
Check  to  the  king." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  padre,  "  and  it's  curious 
how  they  always  begin  at  the  nose!  " 

Over  their  heads  a  hea\y  EngHsh  battery 
began  to  bombard  the  German  line.  The 
padre  smiled  broadly. 

"  There'll  be  dirty  work  at  the  cross  roads 
to-night,"  he  remarked  with  satisfaction. 


22       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  Padre,"  said  the  doctor,  "  are  you  not  the 
minister  of  a  religion  of  peace  and  love  ? " 

"  The  Master  said,  my  boy,  that  one 
must  love  one's  fellow-man.  He  never  said 
that  we  must  love  Germans.  I  take  your 
knight." 

The  Reverend  John  Maclvor,  an  old  mili- 
tary chaplain,  with  a  face  bronzed  by  Eastern 
suns,  took  to  this  life  of  war  and  horrors  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  child.  When  the  men 
were  in  the  trenches  he  visited  them  every 
morning  with  his  pockets  bulging  with  hymn- 
books  and  packets  of  cigarettes.  "While  rest- 
ing behind  the  lines,  he  tried  his  hand  at  bomb- 
ing and  deplored  the  fact  that  his  cloth  for- 
bade him  human  targets. 

Major  Parker  suddenly  stopped  his  work  to 
curse  Brass  Hats  and  their  absurd  questions. 

"  ^Vhen  I  was  in  the  Himalayas  at  Chitral," 
he  said,  "  some  red-hats  sent  us  a  ridiculous 
scheme  for  manoeuvres;  among  other  details 
the  artillery  had  to  cross  a  rocky  defile  hardly 
wide  enough  for  a  very  thin  man. 

"  I  wired,  '  Scheme  received ;  send  immedi- 
ately a  hundred  barrels  of  vinegar.'  '  Report 
yourself  to  the  P.M.O.  for  mental  examina- 
tion/    courteously     remarked     headquarters. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       23 

*  Re-read  "  Hannibal's  Campaign,"  '  I  re- 
plied." 

"  You  really  sent  that  telegram? "  asked 
Aurelle.  "  In  the  French  army  you  would 
have  been  court-martialled." 

"  That's  because  our  two  nations  have  not 
the  same  idea  of  liberty,"  said  the  major. 
"  To  us  the  inalienable  rights  of  man  are 
humour,  sport,  and  primogeniture." 

"  At  the  headquarters  of  the  brigade,"  said 
the  padre,  "  there  is  a  captain  who  must  have 
had  lessons  from  you  in  military  correspond- 
ence. The  other  dav,  as  I  had  no  news  of  one 
of  my  j^oung  chaplains  who  had  left  us  about 
a  month,  I  sent  a  note  to  the  brigade :  '  The 
Reverend  C.  Carlisle  was  invalided  on  Sep- 
tember 12th.  I  should  like  to  know  if  he  is 
better,  and  if  he  has  been  given  a  new  appoint- 
ment.' The  reply  from  the  hospital  said  sim- 
ply: '  1.  Condition  unchanged.  2.  Ultimate 
destination  unknown.'  The  officer  in  trans- 
mitting it  to  me  had  added,  '  It  is  not  clear 
whether  the  last  paragraph  refers  to  the  unit 
to  which  the  Rev.  C.  Carlisle  will  be  eventually 
attached,  or  to  his  eternal  welfare.'  " 

The  Italian  air  came  to  an  end  with  a  tri- 
umphant roulade. 


24       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"What  a  voice!  "  said  the  colonel,  opening 
his  eyes  regretfully. 

He  carefully  stopped  the  record  and  put  it 
affectionately  in  its  case. 

"  ISTow,  messiou,  I  am  going  to  play  '  Des- 
tiny Waltz.'  " 

One  could  just  see  outside  the  Verey  lights 
gently  rising  and  falling.  The  padre  and  the 
doctor  went  on  describing  their  corpses  while 
carefully  manoeuvring  the  ivory  pieces  of  the 
little  set  of  chessmen;  the  howitzers  and 
machine-guns  broke  into  the  voluptuous 
rhythm  of  the  waltz,  creating  a  sort  of  fan- 
tastic symphony  highly  appreciated  by 
Aurelle.  He  continued  to  write  his  letter  in 
easy  verses. 

"  Death  is  a-f oot ;  Fate  calls  the  tune ; 
Lose  not  a  minute — 
Forget!     But  wear  your  black  till — June; 
You're  charming  in  it. 

I  will  not  have  you  come  with  tears. 

With  roses  vain; 
Young  life  will  ask,  in  coming  years, 

Your  rose  again. 

Don't  be  angry  with  me,  dearest,  if  I  descend  to 
the  lowest  level  of  *  romantics  ' ;  a  clergyman  and  a 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       25 

doctor,  beside  me,  are  intent  on  playing  the  r6le  of 
the  Grave-diggers  in  Hamlet. 

Pity  me  not,  for  I  shall  sleep 
Like  any  child, 
'And  from  my  changing  earth  up  leap 
The  grasses  wild. 

But  if,  when  summer  hours  grow  few, 

And  dusk  is  long. 
Your  gaze,  madonna-calm,  should  do 

Your  beauty  wrong, 

Nor  lend  that  sadness  to  your  face 

I  cherish  yet. 
Forget,  then,  for  a  little  space, 

That  you  forget." 

"  Do  you  like  my  waltz,  messiou?  "  said  the 
colonel. 

"  Very  much  indeed,  sir,"  said  Aurelle  sin- 
cerely. 

The  colonel  gave  him  a  grateful  smile. 

"  I'll  play  it  again  for  you,  messiou.  Doc- 
tor, regulate  the  gramophone  slower,  speed 
59.  Don't  scratch  the  record.  For  2/0U,  this 
time,  messiou." 


CHAPTER  III 

BoswELL.    "  Why  then,  sir,  did  he  talk  so?  " 
Johnson.    "  Why,  sir,  to  make  you  answer  as  you 
did." 

THE  batteries  were  asleep;  Major  Parker 
was  answering  questions  from  the  bri- 
gade;  the   orderlies   brought  the  rum, 
sugar  and  boiling  water;  the  colonel  put  the 
gramophone  to  speed  61  and  Dr.  O'Grady 
talked  about  the  Russian  Revolution. 

"  It  is  unprecedented,"  said  he,  "  for  the 
men  who  made  a  revolution  to  remain  in  power 
after  it  is  over.  Yet  one  still  finds  revolu- 
tionaries: that  proves  how  badly  history  is 
taught." 

"  Parker,"  said  the  colonel,  "  pass  the  port." 
"  Ambition,"  said  Aurelle,  "  is  after  all  not 
the  only  motive  that  inspires  men  to  action. 
One  can  be  a  revolutionary  from  hatred  of  a 
tyrant,  from  jealousy,  or  even  from  the  love 
of  humanity." 

26 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       27 

Major  Parker  abandoned  his  papers. 

"  I  admire  France  very  much,  Aurelle,  espe- 
cially since  this  war;  but  one  thing  shocks  me 
in  yom*  country,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  speak 
plainly,  and  that  is  your  jealousy  of  equality. 
When  I  read  the  history  of  your  Revolution 
I  am  sorry  I  was  not  there  to  kick  Robespierre 
and  that  horrible  fellow  Hebert.  And  your 
sans-culottes.  Well,  that  makes  me  long  to 
dress  up  in  purple  satin  and  gold  lace  and 
walk  about  the  Place  de  la  Concorde." 

The  doctor  allowed  a  particularly  acute 
attack  of  hysteria  on  the  part  of  Madame 
Finzi-Magrini  to  pass,  and  went  on: 

"  The  love  of  humanity  is  a  pathological 
state  of  a  sexual  origin  which  often  appears 
at  the  age  of  puberty  in  nervous  and  clever 
people.  The  excess  of  phosphorus  in  the  sys- 
tem must  get  out  somewhere.  As  for  hatred 
of  a  tyrant,  that  is  a  more  human  sentiment 
which  has  full  play  in  time  of  war,  when  force 
and  the  mob  are  one.  Emperors  must  be  mad 
fools  to  decide  on  declaring  wars  which  sub- 
stitute an  armed  nation  for  their  Praetorian 
Guards.  That  idiocy  accomplished,  despotism 
of  course  produces  revolution  until  terrorism 
leads  to  the  inevitable  reaction." 


28       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  You  condemn  us  then,  doctor,  to  oscillate 
between  rebellion  and  a  coup  d'etat?  '^ 

"  No,"  said  the  doctor,  "  because  the  Eng- 
lish people,  who  have  ah*eady  given  the  world 
Stilton  cheese  and  comfortable  chairs,  have  in- 
vented for  our  benefit  the  Parliamentary  sys- 
tem. Our  M.P.'s  arrange  rebelhons  and 
coups  d'etat  for  us,  which  leaves  the  rest  of 
the  nation  time  to  play  cricket.  The  Press 
completes  the  system  by  enabhng  us  to  take 
our  share  in  these  tumults  by  proxy.  All  these 
things  form  a  part  of  modern  comfort  and  in 
a  hundred  years'  time  every  man,  white,  yel- 
low, red  or  black,  will  refuse  to  inhabit  a  room 
without  hot  water  laid  on,  or  a  countrj''  with- 
out a  Parliament." 

"  I  hope  you  are  wrong,"  said  Major  Par- 
ker. "  I  hate  poHticians,  and  I  want,  after 
the  War,  to  go  and  live  in  the  East,  because 
nobody  out  there  pays  any  attention  to  a  gov- 
ernment of  babblers." 

"  My  dear  major,  why  the  devil  do  you  mix 
your  personal  feehngs  with  these  questions? 
Politics  are  controlled  by  laws  as  necessary  as 
the  movements  of  the  stars.  Are  you  an- 
noyed that  there  are  dark  nights  because  you 
happen  to  prefer  moonlight?     Humanity  lies 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble        29 

on  an  uncomfortable  bed.  "When  the  sleeper 
aches  too  much  he  turns  over,  that  is  a  war 
or  an  insurrection.  Then  he  goes  to  sleep 
again  for  a  few  centuries.  All  that  is  quite 
natural  and  happens  without  much  suffering, 
if  one  does  not  mix  up  any  moral  ideas  with 
it.  Attacks  of  cramp  are  not  virtues.  But 
each  change  finds,  alas,  its  prophets  who,  from 
love  of  humanity,  as  Aurelle  says,  put  this 
miserable  globe  to  fire  and  sword." 

"  That's  very  well  said,  doctor,"  said  Au- 
relle, "but  I  return  the  compliment;  if  those 
are  your  sentiments,  why  do  you  take  the  trou- 
ble to  belong  to  a  party?  Because  you  are  a 
damned  socialist." 

"  Doctor,"  said  the  colonel,  "  pass  the  port." 

"  Ah,"  said  the  doctor,  "  that's  because  I 
would  rather  be  persecutor  than  persecuted. 
You  must  know  how  to  recognize  the  arrival 
of  these  periodical  upheavals  and  prepare. 
This  war  will  bring  socialism,  that  is  to  say, 
the  total  sacrifice  of  the  aristocrat  to  the  Levia- 
than. This  in  itself  is  neither  a  blessing  nor  a 
misfortune:  it  is  a  cramp.  Let  us  then  turn 
over  with  a  good  grace,  as  long  as  we  feel  we 
shall  be  more  comfortable  on  the  other  side." 

"  That's   a  perfectly  absurd  theory,"   said 


30       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Major  Parker,  angrily  sticking  out  his  square 
chin,  "  and  if  you  adopt  it,  doctor,  you  must 
give  up  medicine!  Why  try  and  stop  the 
course  of  diseases?  They  are  also,  according 
to  you,  periodic  and  necessary  upheavals.  But 
if  you  pretend  to  fight  against  tuberculosis  do 
not  deny  me  the  right  to  attack  universal  suf- 
frage." 

At  this  moment  a  R.A.M.C.  sergeant  en- 
tered and  asked  Dr.  O' Grady  to  come  and  see 
a  wounded  man:  Major  Parker  remained  mas- 
ter of  the  situation.  The  colonel,  who  had  a 
horror  of  argmnents,  seized  the  opportunity 
to  talk  about  something  else. 

"  Messiou,"  he  said,  "  what  is  the  displace- 
ment of  one  of  your  largest  cruisers?  " 

"  Sixty  thousand  tons,  sir,"  hazarded 
Aurelle  wildly. 

This  knock-out  blow  put  the  colonel  out  of 
action,  and  Aurelle  asked  Major  Parker  why 
he  objected  to  universal  suffrage, 

"  But  don't  you  see,  my  dear  Aurelle,  that 
it  is  the  most  extravagant  idea  that  humanity 
has  ever  conceived?  Our  political  system  will 
be  considered  more  monstrous  than  slavery  in 
a  thousand  years.     One  man,  one  vote,  what- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       3P 

ever  the  man  is!  Do  you  pay  the  same  price 
for  a  good  horse  as  for  a  crock?  " 

"  Have  vou  ever  heard  the  immortal  rea- 
soning  of  our  Courteline  ?  '  WTiy  should  I 
pay  twelve  francs  for  an  umbrella  when  I  can 
get  a  glass  of  beer  for  six  sous? 

"Equal  rights  for  men!"  continued  the 
major  vehemently.  "  A^Tiy  not  equal  courage 
and  equal  intelligence  while  you  are  about  it?  " 

Aurelle  loved  the  major's  impassioned  and 
pleasant  harangues  and,  to  keep  the  discussion 
going,  said  that  he  did  not  see  how  one  could 
refuse  a  people  the  right  to  choose  their 
leaders. 

"To  control  them,  Aurelle,  yes;  but  to 
choose  them,  never  1  An  aristocracy  cannot  be 
elected.  It  is  or  it  isn't.  \\Tiy,  if  I  were  to 
attempt  to  choose  the  Commander-in-Chief  or 
the  Superintendent  of  Guy's  Hospital,  I 
sliould  be  shut  up ;  but,  if  I  wish  to  have  a  voice 
in  the  election  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer or  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty, 
I'm  a  good  citizen!  " 

"  That  is  not  quite  correct,  major.  Minis- 
ters are  not  elected.  Mind,  I  agree  with  you 
tliat  our  political  system  is  imperfect;  but  so 


32       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

are  all  human  affairs.  And  then,  '  La  pire 
des  Chamhres  vaut  mieux  que  la  meilleure  des 
anfichambres/  '* 

"  I  piloted  round  London  lately,"  replied 
the  major,  "  an  Arab  chief  who  honoured  me 
with  his  friendship,  and  when  I  had  shown  him 
the  House  of  Commons  and  explained  what 
went  on  there,  he  remarked,  '  It  must  give  you 
a  lot  of  trouble  cutting  off  those  six  hundred 
heads  when  you  are  not  pleased  with  the 
Government/  " 

"  Messiou,"  said  the  colonel,  exasperated, 
"  I  am  going  to  play  '  Destiny  Waltz,'  for 
you." 

•  •  •  •  • 

Major  Parker  remained  silent  while  the 
waltz  unrolled  its  rhythmic  phrases,  but  he 
ruminated  over  his  old  resentment  against  that 
"  horrible  fellow  Hebert "  and,  as  soon  as  the 
record  had  ground  out  its  final  notes,  he 
started  a  new  attack  on  Aurelle. 

"  WTiat  advantage,"  he  said,  "  could  the 
French  have  found  in  changing  their  govern- 
ment eight  times  in  a  century?  Revolutions 
have  become  a  national  institution  with  you. 
In  England,  it  would  be  impossible.  If  a 
crowd  collected  at  Westminster  and  made  a 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       33 

disturbance,  the  policeman  would  tell  them  to 
go  away  and  they  would  do  so." 

"  What  an  idea!  "  said  Aurelle,  who  did  not 
Hke  Revolutions,  but  who  thought  he  ought 
to  defend  an  old  French  lady  against  this  hot- 
headed Saxon.  "  You  must  not  forget,  major, 
that  you  also  cut  off  your  King's  head.  No 
policeman  intervened  to  save  Charles  Stuart, 
as  far  as  I  know." 

"  The  assassination  of  Charles  I,"  said  the 
major,  "  was  the  sole  work  of  Ohver  Crom- 
well; now  Oliver  was  a  very  good  cavahy  colo- 
nel, but  he  knew  nothing  of  tVe  real  feelings 
of  the  English  people,  which  they  showed 
pretty  plainly  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration. 

"  Cromwell's  head,  which  had  been  em- 
balmed, was  stuck  on  a  pike  on  the  top  of 
Westmmster  Hall.  One  stormy  night  the 
wind  broke  the  shaft  of  the  pike  and  the  head 
rolled  to  the  feet  of  the  sentry.  He  took  it 
home  and  hid  it  in  the  chimney  of  his  house, 
where  it  remained  until  his  death.  It  passed 
through  various  hands  till  it  came  into  the 
possession  of  a  friend  of  mine,  and  I  have 
often  sat  at  tea  opposite  the  head  of  the  Pro- 
tector still  on  its  broken  pike.  One  could 
easily  recognize  the  wart  which  he  had  on  his 


34       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

forehead  and  there  still  remains  a  lock  of  chest- 
nut hair." 

"  Humph,"  grunted  the  colonel,  at  last  in- 
terested in  the  conversation. 

"  Besides,"  continued  the  major,  "  the  Eng- 
lish Revolution  does  not  compare  in  any  way 
with  the  French  one:  it  did  not  weaken  the 
ruling  classes.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  the 
had  business  of  1789  was  caused  by  Louis 
XIV.  Instead  of  leaving  your  country  the 
strong  armour  of  a  landed  gentry  he  made 
his  nobles  into  the  ridiculous  puppets  of  Ver- 
sailles, whose  sole  business  was  to  hand  him 
his  coat  and  his  waistcoat.  In  destroying  the 
prestige  of  a  class  which  should  be  the  natural 
supporters  of  the  monarchy,  he  ruined  it  be- 
yond repair,  and  more's  the  pity." 

"  It  is  very  easy  for  you  to  criticize  us," 
said  Aurelle.  "  We  made  our  Revolution 
for  you:  the  most  important  event  in  English 
history  is  the  taking  of  the  Bastile,  and  well 
you  know  it." 

"  Bravo,  messiou,"  said  the  colonel,  "  stick 
up  for  your  country.  One  ought  always  to 
stick  up  for  one's  country.  Now  please  pass 
the  port.  I  am  going  to  play  you  *  The 
Mikado.' " 


CHAPTER  IV 


aurelle's  letter 


Somewhere  in  France. 
Singing,  the  soldiers  go  their  way : 

"  Stow  your  troubles  inside  your  kit." 
Such  rain  and  wind,  that  you'd  rather  stay 

Indoors,  than  walk  out  with  your  girl  in  it. 
Singing,  the  soldiers  go  their  way : 

I'm  making  you  verses  so  here  I  sit; 
Singing,  the  soldiers  go  their  way : 

"  Stow  your  troubles  inside  your  kit." 

Here  is  the  orderly  bringing,  let's  say. 

Last  week's  papers,  perhaps  a  chit ; 
Stale  chatter  of  old  political  play, 

"  Stow  your  troubles  inside  your  kit.'* 
All  we  can  do,  though  the  year  is  at  May, 

Best  we  can  furnish  by  way  of  wit ; 
Singing,  the  soldiers  go  their  way: 

"  Stow  your  troubles  inside  your  kit. 


5> 


Rain  on  the  window,  beating  like  spray. 
Storms  an  accompaniment,  noisily  fit, 

To  some  prelude  of  Wagner's  forgotten  day, 
"  Stow  your  troubles  inside  your  kit. 


36       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Who  knows  but  to-morrow  a  howitzer  may 

Give  me  uncivil  notice  to  quit. 
Bat  Satan  may  ask  me  to  wet  my  clay — 

So  "  stow  your  troubles  inside  your  kit :  " 
Singing,  the  soldiers  go  their  way. 

GREY  dawn  is  breaking  over  the  spongy 
plain.  To-day  will  be  the  same  as  yes- 
terday, to-morrow  like  to-day.  The 
doctor  will  wave  his  arms  and  say,  "  Tres  triste, 
messioii,"  and  he  will  not  know  what  is  sad,  no 
more  shall  I.  Then  he  will  give  me  a  humor- 
ous lecture  in  a  style  between  Bernard  Shaw 
and  the  Bible. 

The  padre  will  write  letters,  play  patience 
and  go  out  riding.  The  guns  will  thunder, 
Boches  will  he  killed,  some  of  our  men  too. 
We  shall  lunch  off  bully  beef  and  boiled  pota- 
toes, the  beer  will  be  horrible,  and  the  colonel 
will  say  to  me,  "  Biere  fran9aise  no  bonne, 
messiou." 

In  the  evening,  after  a  dinner  of  badly 
cooked  mutton,  with  mint  sauce,  and  boiled 
potatoes,  the  inevitable  gramophone  will  ap- 
pear. We  shall  have  "  The  Arcadians,"  "  The 
Mikado,"  then  "Destiny  Waltz"  — "pour 
vous,  messiou  " — and  "  Mrs,  Finzi-Magrini  " 
for  the  colonel,  and  finally  "  The  Lancashire 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       37 

Ramble."  Unfortunately  for  me,  the  first 
time  that  I  heard  this  circus  tune  I  imitated  a 
juggler  catching  balls  in  time  to  the  music. 
This  little  comedy  henceforth  took  its  place  in 
the  traditions  of  the  Mess,  and  if  this  evening 
at  the  first  notes  of  the  "  Ramble  "  I  should 
forget  to  play  my  part  the  colonel  will  say, 
"  Allons,  messiou,  allons,"  pretending  to  jug- 
gle, but  I  know  my  duty  and  I  shall  not  for- 
get; for  Colonel  Bramble  only  cares  for  fa- 
miliar scenes  and  fine  old  crusted  jokes. 

His  favourite  nimiber  is  a  recitation  by 
O'Grady  of  "  Going  on  leave."  Wlien  he  is 
in  a  bad  temper,  when  one  of  his  old  friends 
has  been  made  a  brigadier-general,  or  been 
given  a  C.B.,  this  recitation  is  the  only  thing 
that  can  make  him  smile.  He  knows  it  by 
heart  and,  like  the  children,  stops  the  doctor 
if  he  misses  a  sentence  or  alters  a  reply. 

"  No,  doctor,  no ;  the  Naval  officer  said  to 
you,  *  When  you  hear  four  loud  short  whis- 
tles, it  means  that  the  ship  has  been  torpe- 
doed,' and  you  repHed,  *  And  what  if  the  tor- 
pedo carries  away  the  whistle? '  " 

The  doctor,  having  found  his  place,  goes  on. 

Parker,  too,  one  day  found  a  remark  which 
erer  afterwards  had  a  brilliant  success.     He 


38       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

got  it  out  of  a,  letter  that  a  chaplain  had  writ- 
ten to  the  Times.  "  The  life  of  the  soldier," 
wrote  this  excellent  man,  "  is  one  of  great 
hardship;  not  infrequently  mingled  with  mo- 
ments of  real  danger." 

The  colonel  thoroughly  enjoys  the  uncon- 
scious humour  of  this  remark,  and  would  quote 
it  whenever  a  shell  scattered  gravel  over  him. 
But  his  great  resource,  if  the  conversation 
bores  him,  is  to  attack  the  padre  on  his  two 
>veak  points:   bishops  and  Scotchmen. 

The  padre,  who  comes  from  the  Highlands, 
is  madly  patriotic.  He  is  convinced  that  it  is 
only  Scotchmen  who  play  the  game  and  who 
are  really  killed. 

"  If  history  told  the  truth,"  he  says,  "  this 
war  would  not  be  called  the  Em-opean  War, 
but  the  war  between  Scotland  and  Germany." 

The  colonel  is  Scotch  himself,  but  he  is  fair, 
and  everj^  time  he  finds  in  the  papers  the  cas- 
ualty lists  of  the  Irish  Guards  or  the  Welsh 
Fusiliers  he  reads  them  out  in  a  loud  voice  to 
the  padre,  who,  to  keep  his  end  up,  maintains 
that  the  Welsh  Fusiliers  and  Irish  Guards  are 
recruited  in  Aberdeen.  This  is  his  invariable 
retort. 

All  this  may  appear  rather  puerile  to  you. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       39 

my  friend,  but  these  childish  things  are  the 
only  bright  spots  in  our  boring,  bombarded 
existence.  Yes,  these  wonderful  men  have  re- 
mained childi'en  in  many  ways;  they  have  the 
fresh  outlook,  and  the  inordinate  love  of 
games,  and  our  rustic  shelter  often  seems  to 
me  hke  a  nursery  of  heroes. 

But  I  have  profound  faith  in  them;  their 
profession  of  empire-builders  has  inspired 
them  with  high  ideals  of  the  duty  of  the  white 
man.  The  colonel  and  Parker  are  "  Sahibs  '* 
whom  nothing  on  earth  would  turn  from  the 
path  they  have  chosen.  To  despise  danger, 
to  stand  firm  under  fire,  is  not  an  act  of  cour- 
age in  their  eyes — it  is  simply  part  of  their 
education.  If  a  small  dog  stands  up  to  a  big 
one  they  say  gi-avely,  "  He  is  a  gentleman." 

A  true  gentleman,  you  see,  is  very  nearly 
the  most  sympathetic  type  which  evolution  has 
produced  among  the  pitiful  group  of  creatures 
who  are  at  this  moment  making  such  a  noise 
in  the  world.  Amid  the  horrible  wickedness 
of  the  species,  the  English  have  estabhshed  an 
oasis  of  courtesy  and  phlegm.     I  love  them. 

I  must  add  that  it  is  a  very  foolish  error 
to  imagine  that  they  are  less  intelligent  than 
ourselves,  in  spite  of  the  delight  my  friend 


40       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Major  Parker  pretends  to  take  in  affirming 
the  contrary.  The  truth  is  that  their  inteUi- 
gence  follows  a  different  method  from  ours. 
Far  removed  from  our  standard  of  rationalism 
and  the  pedantic  sentiment  of  the  Germans, 
they  delight  in  a  vigorous  common  sense  and 
all  absence  of  system.  Hence  a  natural  and 
simple  manner  which  makes  their  sense  of 
humour  still  more  delightful. 

But  I  see,  from  the  window,  my  horse  wait- 
ing for  me ;  and  I  must  go  round  to  the  surly 
farmers  and  get  some  straw  for  the  quarter- 
master, who  is  trying  to  build  stables.  But 
you  are  furnishing  boudoirs,  and  mind  you 
choose,  O  Amazon,  soft,  oriental  silks. 

In  your  salon,  style  "Directory  " 
(Lavender-blue  and  lemon-yellow) 
Ancient  armchairs  sit,  hail-fellow. 
In  a  fashion  contradictory. 
With  a  sofa  lacking  history 
(Lavender-blue  and  lemon-yellow). 

To  our  Merveilleuses  notorious 
(Lavender-blue  and  lemon-yellow) 
Dandies  striped  with  chevrons  mellow 
Shall  proclaim  a  day  victorious, 
Decked  in  dolmans  all-vainglorious 
(Lavender-blue  and  lemon-yellow). 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       41 

Walls  severe,  as  bare  as  a  church 
(Lavender- blue  and  lemon-yellow). 
May  wait  awhile  the  brutal  bellow 
Of  some  First-Consul,  who  may  lurch 
Upon  their  calm  of  days  memorial 
With  his  visage  dictatorial 
(Lavender  eyed  and  skin  of  yellow). 

"  Are  you  a  poet? "  the  colonel  asked  me 
doubtfully,  when  he  saw  me  writing  hues  of 
equal  length. 

I  denied  the  soft  impeachment. 


CHAPTER  V 

IT  had  been  raining  for  four  days.  The 
heavy  raindrops  played  a  monotonous  tat- 
too on  the  curved  roof  of  the  tent.  Out- 
side in  the  field  the  grass  had  disappeared  un- 
der yellow  mud,  in  which  the  men's  footsteps 
sounded  hke  the  smacking  of  a  giant's  Hps. 

"  *  And  God  looked  upon  the  earth,  and 
behold,  it  was  corrupt,'"  recited  the  padre; 
"  '  and  God  said  to  Noah,  Make  thee  an  ark 
of  gopher  wood ;  rooms  shalt  thou  make  in  the 
ark,  and  shalt  pitch  it  within  and  without  with 
pitch.'  " 

"  *  The  same  day  were  all  the  fountains  of 
the  great  deep  broken  up,  and  the  windows  of 
heaven  were  opened,'  "  continued  the  doctor. 

"  The  Flood,"  he  added,  "  was  a  real  event, 
for  its  description  is  common  to  all  oriental 
mythology.  No  doubt  the  Euphrates  had 
burst  its  banks ;  that's  why  the  Ark  was  driven 
into  the  interior  and  came  to  rest  on  a  hill. 
Similar  catastrophes  often  occur  in  Mesopo- 

42 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       43 

tamia  and  in  India,  but  are  rare  in  Belgium." 

"  The  cyclone  of  1876  killed  215,000  people 
in  Bengal,"  said  the  colonel.  "  Messiou,  send 
roimd  the  port,  please," 

The  colonel  loved  statistics,  to  the  great  mis- 
fortune of  Aurelle,  who,  quite  incapable  of 
remembering  figures,  was  interrogated  every 
day  on  the  nmnber  of  inhabitants  in  a  village, 
the  strength  of  the  Serbian  army,  or  the  initial 
velocity  of  the  French  bullet.  He  foresaw 
with  terror  that  the  colonel  was  going  to  ask 
him  the  average  depth  of  rain  in  feet  and 
inches  in  Flanders,  and  he  hastened  to  create 
a  diversion. 

*'  I  found  in  Poperinghe,"  he  said,  showing 
the  book  he  was  reading,  "  this  Axry  curious 
old  volume.  It  is  a  description  of  England 
and  Scotland  by  the  Frenchman,  Etienne 
Perlin,  Paris,  1558." 

"Humph!  ^Vliat  does  this  Mr.  Perlin 
say?"  asked  the  colonel,  who  had  the  same 
respect  for  ancient  things  as  he  had  for  old 
soldiers. 

Aurelle  opened  the  book  at  hazard  and 
translated : 

After    dinner,    the    cloth    is    withdrawn 
and  the  ladies  retire.     The  table  is  of  beau- 


44       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

tiful  glossy  Indian  wood,  and  stands  of  the 
same  wood  hold  the  bottles.  The  name  of 
each  wine  is  engraved  on  a  silver  plate  which 
hangs  by  a  little  chain  round  the  neck  of  the 
bottle.  The  guests  each  choose  the  wine  they 
like  and  drink  it  as  seriously  as  if  they  were 
doing  penance,  while  proposing  the  health  of 
eminent  personages  or  the  fashionable  beau- 
ties ;  this  is  what  is  known  as  a  toast.'  '* 

"  I  like  '  fashionable  beauties,' "  said  the 
doctor.  "  Perhaps  Aurelle  will  take  to  drink- 
ing port,  now  he  can  pour  libations  to  Gaby 
Deslys  or  Gladys  Cooper." 

"  There  are  toasts  for  each  day  in  the  week," 
said  the  colonel,  "  Monday,  our  men ;  Tuesday, 
ourselves ;  Wednesday,  our  swords ;  Thm'sday, 
sport;  Friday,  our  religion;  Saturday,  sweet- 
hearts and  wives;  Sunday,  absent  friends  and 
ships  at  sea." 

Aurelle  went  on  reading  aloud: 

The  toasts  are  of  barbaric  origin,  and  I 
have  been  told  that  the  Highlanders  of  Scot- 
land, a  semi-savage  folk  who  hve  in  a  state 
of  perpetual  feud — '  " 

"Listen  to  that,  padre,"  said  the  colonel. 
"  Read  it  again,  messiou,  for  the  padre.     '  I 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       45 

have  been  told  that  the  Highlanders  of  Scot- 
land—' " 

"  *  A  semi-savage  folk  who  live  in  a  state  of 
perpetual  feud,  have  kept  to  the  original  char- 
acter of  this  custom.  To  drink  the  health  of 
anyone  is  to  ask  him  to  guard  you  while  you 
drink  and  cannot  defend  yourself;  and  the 
person  to  whom  you  drink  replies,  "  I  pledge 
you,"  which  means  in  their  language,  "  I 
guarantee  your  safety."  Then  he  draws  his 
dagger,  places  the  point  on  the  table  and  pro- 
tects you  until  your  glass  is  empty.'  " 

"That's  why,"  said  Major  Parker,  "the 
pewter  pots  that  they  give  for  golf  prizes  have 
always  got  glass  bottoms  through  which  one 
can  see  the  dagger  of  the  assassin." 

"  Send  round  the  port,  messiou,  I  want  to 
drink  the  padre's  health  in  a  second  glass  to 
hear  him  reply,  '  I  pledge  you,'  and  to  see  him 
put  the  point  of  his  dagger  on  the  table." 

"  I've  only  got  a  Swiss  knife,"  said  the 
padre. 

"  That's  good  enough,"  said  the  colonel. 

"  This  theory  of  the  origin  of  toasts  is  very 
probable,"  said  the  doctor.  "  We  are  always 
repeating  ancestral  signs  which  are  quite  use- 


46       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

less  now.  Wlien  a  great  actress  wants  to  ex- 
press hate  she  draws  back  her  charming  lips 
and  shows  her  canine  teeth,  an  unconscious 
sign  of  cannibalism.  We  shake  hands  with  a 
friend  to  prevent  him  using  it  to  strike  us, 
and  we  take  off  our  hats  because  our  ancestors 
used  to  humbly  offer  their  heads,  to  the  big- 
wigs of  those  daj^s,  to  be  cut  off." 

At  that  moment  there  was  a  loud  crack,  and 
Colonel  Bramble  fell  backwards  with  a  crash. 
One  of  the  legs  of  his  chair  had  broken.  The 
doctor  and  Parker  helped  him  up,  while 
Aurelle  and  the  padre  looked  on  in  fits  of 
laughter. 

"  There's  a  good  example  of  an  ancestral 
survival,"  said  the  major,  kindly  intervening 
to  save  Aurelle,  who  was  trying  in  vain  to  stop 
laughing.  "  I  imagine  that  one  laughs  at  a 
fall  because  the  death  of  a  man  was  one  of  the 
most  amusing  sights  for  our  ancestors.  It 
delivered  them  from  an  adversary  and  dimin- 
ished the  number  of  those  who  shared  the  food 
and  the  females." 

"  Now  we  know  you,  messiou,"  said  the 
padre. 

"  A  French  philosopher,"  said  Aurelle,  who 
had  bv  this  time  recovered,  "  has  constructed 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       47 

quite  a  different  theory  of  laughter:  he  is 
called  Bergson  and — " 

"  I  have  heard  of  him,"  said  the  padre ;  "  he's 
a  clergyman,  isn't  he?  " 

"I  have  a  theory  about  laughter,"  said  the 
doctor,  "  which  is  nmch  more  edifying  than 
yours,  major.  I  think  it  is  simply  produced 
by  a  feeling  of  horror,  immediately  succeeded 
by  a  feeling  of  relief.  A  young  monkey  who 
is  devoted  to  the  old  father  of  the  tribe  sees 
him  slip  on  a  banana  skin,  he  fears  an  accident 
and  his  chest  swells  with  fright,  then  he  discov- 
ers that  it's  nothing  and  all  his  muscles  pleas- 
antly relax.  That  was  the  first  joke,  and  it 
explains  the  convulsive  motions  in  laughing. 
Aurelle  is  shaken  physically  because  he  is 
shaken  morally  by  two  strong  motives:  his 
anxious  affection  and  respect  for  the  colo- 
nel— " 

"  Ugh,"  grunted  the  colonel. 

"  And  the  consoling  certainty  that  he  is  not 
hurt." 

"  I  wish  you  would  talk  about  something- 
else,"  said  the  colonel.  "  Read  a  little  more 
of  the  book,  messiou." 

xVurelle  turned  over  some  pages. 

"  '  Other  nations,'  "  he  read,  "  '  accuse  the 


48       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

English  of  incivility  because  they  arrive  and 
depart  without  touching  their  hats,  and  with- 
out that  flow  of  comphments  which  are  com- 
mon to  the  French  and  Italians.  But  those 
who  judge  thus  see  things  in  a  false  light. 
The  English  idea  is  that  politeness  does  not 
consist  in  gestures  or  words  which  are  often 
hypocritical  and  deceptive,  but  in  being  cour- 
teously disposed  to  other  people.  They  have 
their  faults  like  every  nation,  but,  considering 
everything,  I  am  sure  that  the  more  one  knows 
them  the  more  one  esteems  and  Hkes  them.'  " 

"  I  Hke  old  Mr.  Perlin,"  said  the  colonel. 
"  Do  you  agree  with  him,  messiou?  " 

"  The  whole  of  France  now  agrees  with  him, 
sir,"  said  Am'elle  warmly. 

"  You  are  biased,  Aurelle,"  said  Major 
Parker,  "  because  you  are  getting  quite  Eng- 
lish yourself.  You  whistle  in  j^our  bath,  you 
drink  whisky  and  are  beginning  to  like  argu- 
ments ;  if  you  could  only  manage  to  eat  toma- 
toes and  underdone  cutlets  for  breakfast  you 
would  be  perfect." 

"  If  you  don't  mind,  major,  I  would  rather 
remain  French,"  said  Aurelle.  "  Besides,  I 
never  knew  that  whistling  in  one's  bath  was 
an  English  rite." 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       49 

"  So  much  so,"  said  the  doctor,  "  that  I  have 
arranged  to  have  carved  on  my  tombstone: 
'  Here  lies  a  British  subject  who  never  whis- 
tled in  his  bath  or  tried  to  be  an  amateur  de- 
tective.' " 


CHAPTER  VI 

BRITISH  conversation  is  like  a  game  of 
cricket  or  a  boxing  match ;  personal  allu- 
sions are  forbidden  like  hitting  below  the 
belt,  and  anyone  who  loses  his  temper  is  dis- 
quahfied. 

Aurelle  met  at  the  Lennox  Mess  veterina- 
ries  and  generals,  tradesmen  and  dukes.  Ex- 
cellent whisky  was  provided  and  the  guests  en- 
tertained in  a  friendly  way  without  boring 
them  with  too  much  attention. 

"  It  rains  a  lot  in  yom*  country,"  said  a 
major  in  the  Engineers  who  sat  next  him  one 
evening. 

**  So  it  does  in  England,"  said  Aurelle, 

"  I  intend,"  said  the  major,  "  when  this 
damned  war  is  over,  to  leave  the  army  and 
go  and  live  in  ISTew  Zealand." 

"  You  have  friends  there?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  but  the  salmon  fishing  is  very 
good." 

Bring  your  rod  over  here  while  we  are 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       51 

resting,  major,  the  pond  is  full  of  enormous 
pike." 

"  I  never  fish  for  pike,"  said  the  major,  "  he 
IS  not  a  gentleman.  When  he  sees  he  is 
caught  he  gives  up;  the  salmon  fights  to  the 
end,  even  without  hope.  A  thirty-pound  fel- 
low will  sometimes  fight  two  hours;  that's 
something  like,  isn't  it?  " 

"  Admirable !  "  said  Aurelle.  "  And  what 
about  trout?" 

"The  trout  is  a  lady,"  said  the  major; 
"  you  must  deceive  her ;  but  it  is  not  easy, 
because  she  is  a  judge  of  flies.  And  you,"  he 
added  politely,  after  a  short  silence,  "  what 
do  you  do  in  peace  time? " 

"  I  write  a  little,"  said  Aurelle,  "  and  I  am 
trying  for  a  degree." 

"  No,  no ;  I  mean  what  is  your  sport — fish- 
ing, hunting,  golf,  polo?" 

"  To  tell  the  truth,"  acknowledged  Aurelle, 
"  I  am  not  nmch  good  at  sport.  I  am  not 
very  strong  and — " 

"  I'm  sorry  to  hear  that,"  said  the  major, 
but  he  turned  to  his  other  neighbour  and  both- 
ered no  more  about  the  Frenchman. 

Aurelle  was  thrown  back  on  the  Veterinary 
Captain  Clarke  sitting  on  his  left,  who  had 


52       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

up  to  then  been  eating  and  drinking  without 
saying  a  word. 

"  It  rains  a  lot  in  your  country,"  said  Cap- 
tain Clarke. 

"So  it  does  in  England,"  said  Aurelle. 

"  I  intend,"  said  Clarke,  "  when  this 
damned  war  is  over  to  go  back  to  Santa 
Lucia." 

Aurelle  asked  if  the  captain's  family  lived 
in  the  Antilles. 

He  was  horrified. 

"  Oh,  no !  I  belong  to  a  Staffordshire  fam- 
ily. I  went  out  there  quite  by  chance;  I  was 
travelling  for  pleasure  and  my  boat  touched 
at  Santa  Lucia;  I  found  the  heat  very  agree- 
able and  I  stayed  there.  I  bought  some  land 
very  cheap  and  I  grow  cocoa." 

"  And  it  does  not  bore  you  ?  " 

"  No,  the  nearest  white  man  is  six  miles  off, 
and  the  coast  of  the  island  is  excellent  for  sail- 
ing. What  more  could  I  do  at  home  ?  When 
I  go  to  England  for  three  months'  holiday,  I 
spend  a  week  at  my  old  home,  then  I  go  off 
in  a  yacht  alone.  I  have  been  all  round  your 
Brittany  coast ;  it  is  delightful  because  the  cur- 
rents are  so  difficult  and  your  charts  are  so 
good;  but  it  is  not  warm  enough.     At  Santa 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       53 

Lucia  I  can  smoke  cigarettes  in  my  pyjamas 
on  my  veranda." 

He  slowly  swallowed  his  port  and  con- 
cluded : 

"  No,  I  don't  like  Europe — ^too  much  work. 
But,  out  there,  there  is  enough  food  for  every- 
body." 

The  colonel  at  the  other  end  of  the  table 
was  holding  forth  about  India,  the  white 
ponies  of  his  regiment,  the  native  servants 
with  their  complicated  names  and  varied 
duties,  and  the  lax  hfe  in  the  Hills.  Parker 
described  hunting  on  an  elephant. 

"  You  stand  up  on  your  animal  firmly  tied 

on  by  one  leg,  and  when  the  elephant  gallops 

you  fly  into  space:  it's  really  most  exciting." 

*  "  I'll  take  j^our  word  for  it,"  said  Aurelle. 

"  Yes,  but  if  you  trj'-  it,"  said  the  colonel 
solicitously  to  Aurelle,  "  don't  forget  to  slide 
off  by  the  tail  as  quickly  as  you  can  if  the  ele- 
phant comes  to  marshy  ground.  His  instinct, 
when  the  ground  gives  way  beneath  him,  is  to 
seize  you  in  his  trunk  and  put  you  down 
in  front  of  him  to  have  something  solid  to 
kneel  on." 

"  I'll  remember,  sir,"  said  Aurelle. 

"  In  the  Malay  States,"  said  the  major  of 


54       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Engineers,  "  the  wild  elephants  wander  about 
Jhe  main  roads.  I  often  met  them  when  I  was 
on  my  motor-bike ;  if  your  face  or  your  clothes 
annoy  them  they  pick  you  off  and  smash  your 
head  by  treading  on  it.  But  except  for  that 
they  are  quite  inoffensive." 

A  long  discussion  on  the  most  vulnerable 
part  of  an  elephant  followed.  The  padre 
showed  his  knowledge  by  explaining  how  the 
anatomy  of  the  Indian  elephant  differed  from 
that  of  the  African  species. 

"  Padre,"  said  Aurelle,  "  I  always  knew  you 
were  a  sportsman;  but  have  you  ever  really 
done  any  big  game  shooting? " 

"  What!  my  dear  fellow?  Big  game?  I've 
killed  pretty  nearty  everything  a  hunter  can 
kill,  from  the  elephant  and  rhinoceros  to  the 
lion  and  tiger.  I've  never  told  you  the  story 
of  my  first  lion?  " 

"  Never,  padre,"  said  the  doctor,  "  but  you 
are  going  to  now." 

*'  Padre,"  said  the  colonel,  "  I  should  like  to 
hear  your  stories,  but  I  make  one  condition: 
some  one  must  start  the  gramophone  for  me. 
I  want  my  dear  *  Mrs.  Finzi-Magrini '  to- 
night.' 


» 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       55 

"  Oh,  no,  sir,  for  pity's  sake!  I'll  let  you 
have  a  rag-time  if  you  absolutely  must  grind 
that  damned  machine." 

"  Not  at  all,  doetor,  you  aren't  going  to  get 
off  so  easily.  I  insist  on  '  Finzi-Magrini.' 
Come,  Aurelle,  hke  a  good  chap,  and  remem- 
ber, speed  60,  and  don't  scratch  my  record. 
Padre,  you  may  now  begin  the  story  of  your 
first  lion." 

"  I  was  at  Johannesburg  and  very  much 
wanted  to  join  a  sporting  club,  as  a  number 
of  the  members  were  friends  of  mine.  But 
the  rules  did  not  admit  any  candidate  who  had 
not  at  least  killed  a  lion.  So  I  set  out  with 
a  nigger  loaded  with  several  rifles,  and  that 
evening  lay  in  wait  with  him  near  a  water- 
hole  where  a  lion  was  accustomed  to  come  and 
drink. 

"  Half  an  hour  before  midnight  I  heard  the 
crashing  of  branches  and  over  the  top  of  a 
bush  appeared  the  head  of  a  lion.  He  had 
winded  us  and  looked  our  way.  I  aimed  and 
fired.  The  head  disappeared  behind  the  bush, 
but  appeared  again  after  a  minute.  A  sec- 
ond shot,  the  same  result.  The  brute  got 
frightened,  hid  his  head  and  then  put  it  up 


56       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

again.  I  remained  quite  cool,  I  had  sixteen 
shots  to  fire  in  mv  various  rifles.  Third  shot, 
same  old  game;  fourth  shot,  ditto. 

"  I  got  unnerved  and  shot  badly,  so  that 
after  the  fifteenth  shot  the  beast  put  up  his 
head  again.  '  Miss  that  one,  him  eat  us,'  said 
the  nigger.  I  took  a  long  breath,  aimed  care- 
fully and.  fired.  The  animal  fell.  One  second 
— two — ten — he  did  not  reappear.  I  waited 
a  little  longer,  then  I  rushed  out  followed  by 
my  nigger,  and  guess,  messiou,  what  I  found 
behind." 

"The  lion,  padre." 

"  Sixteen  hons,  my  boy,  and  every  one  had 
a  bullet  in  its  eye!  That's  how  I  made  my 
debut." 

"By  Jove,  padre!  Who  says  the  Scotch 
have  no  imagination? " 

"  Now  listen  to  a  true  story.  It  was  in 
India  that  I  first  killed  a  woman.  Yes,  yes, 
a  woman!  I  had  set  out  tiger-shooting  when 
in  passing  through  a  village,  buried  in  the  jun- 
gle, an  old  native  stopped  me.  '  Sahib,  sahib, 
a  bear ! '  And  he  pointed  out  a  moving  black 
shape  up  a  tree.  I  took  aim  quickly  and  fired. 
The  mass  fell  heavily  with  a  crashing  of 
branches,    and   I   discovered   an   old   woman, 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       57 

whom  I  had  demolished  while  she  was  picking 
fruit.  Another  old  nigger,  the  husband,  over- 
whelmed me  with  abuse.  They  went  and 
fetched  the  native  policeman.  I  had  to  buy 
off  the  family ;  it  cost  a  terrible  lot,  at  least 
two  pounds. 

"  The  story  soon  got  about  for  twenty  miles 
around,  and  for  several  weeks  I  could  not  go 
through  a  village  without  two  or  three  old  men 
rushing  at  me  and  crying, '  Sahib,  sahib,  a  bear 
up  the  tree ! '  I  need  hardly  tell  j^ou  that  they 
had  just  made  their  wives  climb  up.'* 

Then  Parker  described  a  crocodile  hunt,  and 
Captain  Clarke  gave  some  details  about 
sharks  in  Bermuda,  which  are  not  dangerous 
as  long  as  people  take  the  precaution  of  jump- 
ing into  the  water  in  company.  The  colonel, 
meanwhile,  played  "  The  March  of  the  Lost 
Brigade  "  in  slow  time.  The  New  Zealand 
major  put  some  eucalyptus  leaves  in  the  fire 
so  that  the  smell  might  remind  him  of  the 
Bush.  Aurelle,  rather  dazed,  fuddled  with 
the  Indian  sun  and  the  scent  of  wild  animals, 
at  last  realized  that  this  world  is  a  great  park 
laid  out  by  a  gardener  god  for  the  gentlemen 
of  the  United  Kingdoms. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Since  you  are  kept  indoors  beside  the  ember. 
Since  you  despise  the  novels  on  your  lists. 
Since,  happily,  no  happy  man  exists, 
And  since  this  August  wickedly  persists 
To  play  December, 

I  scribble  you  these  lines  sans  form  or  feet, 
Sans  rhyme — and  reason,  which  one  more  deplores, 
Which  I  shall  call,  when  stand  my  works  complete, 
**  Talk  with  a  lady  who  was  kept  indoors 
By  rain  and  sleet.'* 

I  know  not  if  your  sentiment's  the  same, 

But  when  I  idly  sit,  in  idle  dreams, 

And  the  rain'  falls  upon  my  heart,  it  seems  ,  .  • 

"    A    URELLE,"  said  the  doctor,  "  this  time 
/-%    you  are  writing  verses;  deny  it  if  you 

can.     You  are  taken  red-handed.'* 
"M-ph!"  grunted  the  colonel  scornfully, 

but  with  indulgence. 

"  I  own  to  it,  doctor,  but  what  then?     Is  it 

contrary  to  King's  Regulations?  " 

58 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       59 

"  No,"  said  the  doctor,  "  but  I'm  surprised. 
I  have  always  been  convinced  that  the  French 
cannot  be  a  nation  of  poets.  Poetry  is  rhymed 
foohshness.  Now  you  are  not  a  fool,  and  you 
have  no  sense  of  rhythm." 

"You  do  not  know  our  poets,"  said  Aurelle, 
annoyed.  "  Have  you  read  Musset,  Hugo, 
Baudelaire?" 

"  I  know  Hugo,"  said  the  Oolonel.  "  When 
I  commanded  the  troops  in  Guernsey  I  was 
shown  his  house.  I  also  tried  to  read  his  book, 
*  The  Toilers  of  the  Sea,'  but  it  was  too 
boring." 

The  arrival  of  Major  Parker,  pushing  in 
front  of  him  two  boyish-looking  captains,  put 
an  end  to  this  conference. 

"  Here  are  young  Gibbons  and  Warburton. 
You  must  give  them  a  cup  of  tea  before  send- 
ing them  back  to  their  companies.  I  found 
them  sitting  on  the  side  of  the  Zillebeke  Road, 
no  doubt  waiting  for  a  taxi.  These  London 
people  will  expect  anj^thing." 

Gibbons  was  retm-ning  from  leave,  and 
Warburton,  a  dark  Welshman  very  like  a 
Frenchman,  who  had  been  wounded  two 
months  before  in  Artois,  was  rejoining  the 
Lennox  after  sick  leave. 


6o      The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  Aurelle,  give  me  a  cup  of  tea  like  a  good 
fellow,"  said  Major  Parker.  "  Oh,  the  milk 
first,  I  beseech  you!  And  ask  for  a  whisky 
and  soda  to  wake  up  Captain  Gibbons,  will 
you?  He  looks  as  if  he  had  just  come  out  of 
his  wigwam  and  had  not  dug  up  his  war 
hatchet  yet." 

"  It's  such  a  horrible  change,"  said  Gibbons. 
"  Yesterday  morning  I  was  still  in  my  garden 
in  a  real  English  valley,  with  hedges  and  trees. 
Everything  was  clean  and  fresh  and  cared-for 
and  happy.     My   pretty   sisters-in-law  were 
playing  tennis.     We  were  all  dressed  in  white, 
and  here  I  am  suddenly  transported  into  this 
dreadful  mangled  wood  among  you  band  of 
assassins.     When  do  you  think  this  damned 
war  will  be  over  ?     I  am  such  a  peaceable  man  1 
I  prefer  church  bells  to  guns  and  the  piano  to 
a  Hotchkiss.     My  one  ambition  is  to  live  in 
the  country  with  my  plump  httle  wife  and  a 
lot  of  plump  little  children."     And,  raising  his 
glass,  he  concluded,  "  I  drink  to  the  end  of 
these  follies,  and  to  hell  with  the  Boches  who 
brought  us  here !  " 

But  keen  Warburton  cut  in  immediately. 

"  I  like  the  War.     It  is  onh'^  War  that  gives 
us  a  normal  existence.     What  do  you  do  in 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       6i 

peace-time?  You  stay  at  home;  you  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  your  time;  you  argue 
with  your  parents,  and  your  wife — if  you 
have  one.  Everyone  thinks  you  are  an  insuf- 
ferable egotist — and  so  you  are.  The  War 
comes;  you  only  go  home  every  five  or  six 
months.  You  are  a  hero,  and,  what  women 
appreciate  much  more,  you  are  a  change.  You 
know  stories  that  have  never  been  published. 
You've  seen  strange  men  and  terrible  things. 
Your  father,  instead  of  telling  his  friends  that 
you  are  embittering  the  end  of  his  life,  intro- 
duces you  to  them  as  an  oracle.  These  old 
men  consult  you  on  foreign  politics.  If  j^ou 
are  married,  your  wife  is  prettier  than  ever; 
if  you  are  not,  all  the  girls  lay  siege  to 
you. 

"  You  like  the  country?  Well,  you  live  in 
a  wood  here.  You  love  your  wife?  But  who 
was  it  said  that  it  is  easier  to  die  for  the  woman 
one  loves  than  to  live  with  her?  For  myself 
I  prefer  a  Hotchkiss  to  the  piano,  and  the 
chatter  of  my  men  to  that  of  the  old  ladies 
who  come  to  tea  at  my  home.  No,  Gibbons, 
War  is  a  wonderful  epoch,"  and,  holding  up 
his  glass,  he  said,  "  I  drink  to  the  gentle  Hun 
who  procures  these  pleasures  for  us." 


62       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Then  he  described  his  time  at  the  Duchess' 
hospital. 

"  I  thought  I  was  with  the  Queen  of  the 
Fairies.  We  got  everything  we  wanted  with- 
out asking  for  it.  When  our  fiancees  were 
coming  to  see  us,  we  were  propped  up  with 
cushions  to  match  the  colour  of  our  eyes.  A 
fortnight  before  I  could  get  up  they  brought 
twelve  brightly  coloured  dressing-gowns  for 
me  to  choose  w^hich  one  I  would  wear  the  first 
time  I  was  allowed  out  of  bed.  I  chose  a  red 
and  green  one,  which  was  hung  up  near  me, 
and  I  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  put  it  on  that  I 
got  well  three  days  quicker.  There  was  a 
Scotch  captain  with  such  a  beautiful  wife  that 
all  the  patients'  temperatures  went  up  when 
she  came  to  see  him.  They  ended  by  making 
a  special  door  for  her  near  her  husband's  bed, 
so  that  she  need  not  walk  down  the  whole 
ward.  Oh,  I  hope  I  shall  be  wounded  soon! 
Doctor,  promise  to  send  me  to  the  Duchess' 
hospital !  " 

But  Gibbons,  with  eyes  still  full  of  tender 
memories  of  home,  would  not  be  consoled. 
The  padre,  who  was  wise  and  kind,  made  him 
describe  the  last  revue  at  the  Palace,  and  com- 
placently discussed  the  legs  and  shoulders  of 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       63 

a  "  sweet  little  thing."  The  colonel  got  out 
his  best  records  and  played  "Mrs.  Finzi- 
Magrini  "  and  "  Destiny  Waltz  "  to  his  guests. 
Gibbons  sat  with  his  head  in  his  hands  during 
the  waltz.  The  colonel  was  going  to  chaff 
him  mildly  about  his  melancholy  thoughts,  but 
the  little  captain  got  up  at  the  end  of  the  tune 
and  said: 

"  I  had  better  be  off  before  dark."  And  off 
he  went. 

"  Silly  ass,"  said  Parker,  after  a  pause. 

The  colonel  and  the  padre  agreed.  Aurelle 
alone  protested. 

"  Aurelle,  my  friend,"  ,said  Dr.  O'Grady, 
*'  if  you  want  to  be  thought  anything  of 
amongst  Englishmen,  you  must  make  yourself 
see  their  point  of  view.  They  don't  care  for 
melancholy  people,  and  hav^e  a  contempt  for 
sentiment.  This  applies  to  love  as  well  as  to 
patriotism  and  religion.  If  you  want  the  colo- 
nel to  despise  you,  stick  a  flag  in  your  tunic. 
If  you  want  the  padre  to  treat  you  with  con- 
tempt, give  him  a  letter  to  censor  full  of  pious 
rubbish;  if  you  want  to  make  Parker  sick, 
weep  over  a  photograph.  They  spend  their 
youth  hardening  their  skins  and  their  hearts. 
They  fear  neither  physical  blows  nor  the  blows 


64       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

of  fate.  They  look  upon  exaggeration  as  the 
worst  of  vices,  and  coldness  as  a  sign  of  aris- 
tocracy. When  thej^  are  very  miserable,  they 
smile.  '\¥hen  they  are  very  happy,  they  say 
nothing  at  all.  And  au  fond  John  Bull  is  ter- 
ribly sentimental,  which  explains  everything." 
"All  that  is  perfectly  true,  Aurelle,"  said 
Parker,  "  but  you  must  not  say  it.  The  doc- 
tor is  a  confounded  Irishman  who  cannot  hold 
his  tongue." 

Upon  which,  the  doctor  and  Major  Parker 
began  a  discussion  on  the  Irish  question  in 
their  usual  amusingly  sarcastic  manner.  The 
colonel  looked  in  his  box  of  records  for 
"  When  Irish  eyes  are  smiling,"  then  wisely 
and  courteously  interrupted  them. 

"  And  so,  Aurelle,"  concluded  Major  Par- 
ker, "  you  see  us  poor  Englishmen  searching 
hard  for  the  solution  of  a  problem  when  there 
isn't  one.  You  may  think  that  the  Irish  want 
certain  definite  reforms,  and  that  they  will  be 
happy  and  contented  the  day  they  get  them; 
but  not  at  all.  AVhat  amuses  them  is  discus- 
sion itself,  plotting  in  theory.  They  play  with 
the  idea  of  Home  Rule;  if  we  gave  it  them, 
the  game  would  be  finished  and  they  would  in- 
vent another,  probably  a  more  dangerous  one." 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       65 

"  Go  to  Ireland  after  the  War,  messiou," 
said  the  colonel,  ''  it's  an  extraordinary  coun- 
try. Every  one  is  mad.  You  can  commit  the 
worst  crimes — it  doesn't  matter.  Nothing 
matters." 

"  The  worst  crimes?  "  said  Aurelle,  "  Oh, 
I  say,  sir! " 

"  Oh,  yes,  anything  you  like — ^the  most  un- 
heard-of things.  You  can  go  out  hunting  in 
brown  breeches,  fish  in  your  neighbour's  sal- 
mon river — nothing  will  happen;  no  one  will 
take  the  smallest  notice  of  you." 

'*  I  do  beheve,"  said  Aurelle,  "  that  I  am 
beginning  to  understand  the  Irish  question." 

"  I  will  finish  vour  education,"  said  the  doc- 
tor.  "  A  year  before  the  War  a  Liberal  M.P. 
who  was  visiting  Ireland  said  to  an  old  peas- 
ant, '  Well,  my  friend,  we  are  soon  going  to 
give  you  Home  Rule ! '  *  God  save  us,  your 
honour,'  said  the  man,  '  do  not  do  that.' 
'  What  ? '  said  the  astonished  Member.  '  You 
don't  want  Home  Rule  now  ? '  '  Your  hon- 
our,' said  the  man,  '  I'll  tell  vou.  You  are  a 
good  Christian,  your  honour?  It's  to  heaven 
you  want  to  go?  So  do  I,  but  we  do  not  want 
to  go  there  to-night.'  '* 


CHiVPTER  VIII 

Chorus  :    "  What,   Jupiter  not  so   strong  as  these 

goddesses  ?  " 
PiiOMETHEUs :  "  Yes,  even  he  cannot  escape  destiny." 

WIEN  young  Lieutenant  Warburton, 
temporarily    commanding    B    Com- 
pany  of   the    Lennox    Highlanders, 
took  over  his  trench,  the  captain  he  came  to 
relieve  said  to  him: 

"  This  part  is  not  too  unhealthy;  they  are 
only  thirty  yards  off,  but  they  are  tame 
Boches.     All  they  ask  is  to  be  left  alone." 

"  We  will  wake  things  up  a  bit,"  said  War- 
burton  to  his  men,  when  the  peaceable  warrior 
had  departed. 

^\Tien  wild  beasts  are  too  well  fed,  thev 
become  domesticated;  but  a  few  well-directed 
rockets  will  make  them  savage  again.  In  vir- 
tue of  this  principle,  Warburton,  having  pro- 
vided himself  with  a  star  shell,  instead  of  send- 
ing it  straight  up,  fired  it  horizontally  towards 
the  German  trenches. 

66 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       67 

A  distracted  Saxon  sentry  cried,  "  Liquid- 
fire  attack!  "  The  Boche  machine-guns  began 
to  bark.  Warburton,  delighted,  replied  with 
grenades.  The  enemy  called  the  artillery  to 
its  assistance.  A  telephone  call,  a  hail  of 
shrapnel,  and  immediate  reprisals  by  the  Brit- 
ish big  guns. 

The  next  day  the  German  communique 
said:    "  An  attack  by  the  British  under  cover 

of  liquid-fire  at  H was  completely  checked 

by  the  combined  fire  of  our  infantry  and 
artillery." 

0275  Private  Scott,  H.  J.,  who  served  his 
King  and  country  under  the  strenuous  War- 
burton,  disapproved  heartily  of  his  officer's 
heroic  methods.  Not  that  he  was  a  coward, 
but  the  War  had  taken  him  by  surprise  when 
he  had  just  married  a  charming  girl,  and,  as 
Captain  Gadsby  of  the  Pink  Hussars  says,  "  a 
married  man  is  only  half  a  man."  Scott 
counted  the  days  he  spent  in  the  trenches,  and 
this  one  was  the  first  of  ten,  and  his  chief  was 
reckless. 

The  god  who  guards  lovers  intervened  the 
next  day  by  the  simple  means  of  a  scrap  of 
paper  asking  for  a  man  from  the  regiment, 
mechanic  by  trade,  to  look  after  a  machine 


68       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

at  P for  disinfecting  clothes.     P was 

a  pretty  little  town  at  least  eight  miles  from 
the  front  line,  rather  deserted  by  the  inhabi- 
tants on  account  of  marmites,  but  all  the  same 
a  safe  and  comfortable  retreat  for  a  troglodyte 
of  the  trenches. 

0275  Private  Scott,  mechanic  by  trade,  put 
his  name  down.  His  lieutenant  abused  him; 
his  colonel  recommended  him;  and  his  general 
nominated  him.  An  old  London  omnibus 
painted  a  mihtary  grey  took  him  away  to  his 
new  life,  far  from  Warburton  and  his  perils. 

The  machine  which  Scott  had  to  look  after 
was  in  the  yard  of  a  college,  an  old  building 
covered  with  i\y;  and  Abbe  Hoboken,  the 
principal,  received  him,  when  he  arrived,  as 
if  he  were  a  general. 

"  Are  you  a  Catholic,  my  son?  "  he  asked 
him  in  the  English  of  the  college. 

Luckily  for  Scott,  he  did  not  understand, 
and  answered  vaguely: 

"  Yes,  sir." 

This  involuntary  renunciation  of  the  Scotch 
Presbyterian  Church  procured  him  a  room 
belonging  to  a  mobilized  Belgian  professor 
and  a  bed  with  sheets. 

Now,   at  that  very  moment,   Hauptmann 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       69 

Beineker,  who  commanded  a  German  battery 
of  heavy  artillery  at  Paschendaele,  was  in  a 
very  bad  temper. 

The  evening  post  had  brought  him  an  am- 
biguous letter  from  his  wife  in  which  she  men- 
tioned too  often,  and  with  an  affectation  of 
indifference,  a  wounded  officer  of  the  Guards, 
whom  she  had  been  nursing  for  several  days. 

During  the  night,  he  surveyed  his  gun- 
emplacements  on  the  outskirts  of  a  wood,  then 
he  said  suddenly: 

"  Wolfgang,  have  you  any  shells  avail- 
able?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

*'  How  many? " 

"  Three." 

*'  Good!    Wake  up  Theresa's  crew.'* 

He  then  verified  his  calculations  by  his  map. 

The  men,  half  awake,  loaded  the  enormous 
gun.  Reineker  gave  the  order,  and,  shaking 
up  everyone  and  everything,  the  shell  started 
forth,  hurtling  through  the  night. 

0275  Private  Scott,  then,  who  adored  his 
wife  and  had  accepted  a  post  without  honour 
for  her  sake,  was  sleeping  peacefully  in  the 
bedroom  of  a  mobihzed  Belgian  professor :  and 
Captain  Reineker,  whose  wife  no  longer  loved 


70       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

him,  and  whom  he  mistrusted,  was  striding 
fm-iously  up  and  down  amongst  the  frozen 
woods,  and  these  two  circumstances,  widely 
apart  from  one  another,  were  developed  inde- 
pendently in  an  indifferent  world. 

Now  the  calculations  of  Reineker,  hke  most 
calculations,  went  wrong.  He  was  400  yards 
out.  His  landmark  was  the  church.  From 
the  church  to  the  college  was  400  yards.  A 
Hght  wind  increased  the  deviation  by  20  yards, 
and  from  that  moment  the  Reineker  and  the 
Scott  situation  began  to  have  points  in  com- 
mon. At  this  particular  point  the  chest  of 
0275  Private  Scott  received  the  full  force  of 
the  305  shell,  and  he  was  blown  into  a  thou- 
sand bits,  which,  amongst  other  things,  put  an 
end  to  the  Scott  situation. 


CHAPTER  IX 


c< 


The  ideal  of  the  English  Church  has  been  to 
provide  a  resident  gentleman  for  every  parish  in 
the  Kingdom,  and  there  have  been  worse  ideals." 

Shane  Leslie. 

AURELIjE,  arriving  for  tea  at  the  Mess, 
found  only  the  padre  repairing  a  magic 
lantern. 

"  Hullo,  messiou,"  he  said,  "  very  glad  to 
see  you.  I  am  getting  my  lantern  ready  for 
a  sporting  sermon  to  the  men  of  B  Company 
when  they  come  out  of  the  trenches." 

"  What,  padre,  you  preach  sermons  now 
with  a  magic  lantern?  " 

"  My  boy,  I  am  trying  to  make  the  men 
come;  there  are  too  many  who  keep  away.  I 
know  very  well  that  the  regiment  has  a  good 
many  Presbyterians,  but  if  you  could  see  the 
Irish  regiments — not  a  man  misses  going  to 
Mass.  Ah,  messiou,  the  Cathohc  padres  have 
more  influence  than  we  have.  I  ask  myself, 
why?     I  go  every  day  to  the  trenches,  and 

Tl 


72       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

even  if  the  men  think  me  an  old  fool  they 
might  at  least  recognize  that  I  am  a  sports- 
man." 

"  The  regiment  is  very  fond  of  you,  padre. 
But,  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so,  I  think 
that  Catholic  priests  have  a  special  influence. 
Confession  has  something  to  do  with  it,  but 
their  vow  of  cehbacy  more,  because,  in  a  sort 
of  way,  it  makes  them  different  from  other 
people.  Even  the  doctor  tones  down  his  best 
stories  when  Father  Murphy  dines  with  us.'* 

"But,  my  boy,  I  love  O'Grady's  stories; 
I  am  an  old  soldier  and  a  man  of  the  world. 
A^Tien  I  was  shooting  in  Africa  a  negro  queen 
made  me  a  present  of  three  young  negresses." 
'  "Padre!" 

"  Oh,  I  let  them  go  the  same  day,  which 
annoyed  them  somewhat.  But  I  don't  see 
why,  after  that,  I  need  play  Mrs.  Grundy  in 
the  Mess." 

One  of  the  orderlies  brought  some  boiling 
water,  and  the  padre  asked  Aurelle  to  make 
the  tea. 

"  When  I  was  married — not  that  way,  mes- 
siou ;  it's  curious  that  no  Frenchman  can  make 
tea.  Always  warm  the  teapot  first,  my  boy; 
you  cannot  make  good  tea  with  a  cold  teapot." 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       73 

"  You  were  talking  about  your  wedding, 
padre." 

"  Yes,  I  wanted  to  tell  you  how  indignant 
all  these  Pharisees  were,  who  want  me  to  be- 
have like  a  prude  with  young  people,  when  I 
merely  wanted  to  be  reasonable.  When  I 
was  going  to  be  married,  I  naturally  had  to 
ask  one  of  my  colleagues  to  perform  the  cere- 
mony. After  having  settled  the  important 
points,  I  said  to  him,  '  In  the  Marriage  Serv- 
ice of  the  C3hurch  of  England  there  is  one 
passage  which  I  consider  absolutely  indecent. 
Yes,  yes,  I  know  quite  well  that  it  is  what 
St.  Paul  said.  Well,  probably  in  his  time  he 
had  a  perfect  right  to  say  such  things,  and 
they  were  adapted  to  the  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  the  Corinthians,  but  thev  are  not 
meant  for  the  ears  of  a  young  girl  from  Aber- 
deen in  1906.  Mv  fiancee  is  innocent,  and  I 
will  not  have  her  shocked.'  The  young  man, 
a  worldly-minded  little  curate,  went  and  com- 
plained to  the  bishop,  who  sent  for  me  and 
said  haughtily,  '  So  it  is  you  who  are  taking 
upon  yourself  to  forbid  the  reading  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians?  I  would  have 
you  know  that  I  am  not  the  man  to  put  up 
with  nonsense  of  this  sort.'     '  All  right,'  I  re- 


74       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

plied,  *  I  would  have  you  know  that  I  am  not 
the  man  to  put  up  with  an  insult  to  my  wife. 
If  this  fellow  insists  on  reading  the  passage, 
I  shall  say  nothing  in  the  church,  out  of  re- 
spect for  the  sacred  edifice,  but  I  promise 
you  that  after  the  ceremony  I  shall  box  his 
ears.' 

"  Well,  messiou,  the  bishop  looked  at  me 
carefully  to  see  if  I  was  in  earnest.  Then 
he  remembered  my  campaign  in  the  Trans- 
vaal, the  negro  Queen,  and  the  dangers  of  a 
scandal,  and  he  answered  me  with  unction, 
*  I  do  not  see  after  all  that  the  passage  that 
shocks  you  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  mar- 
riage ceremony.'  " 

Dr.  O' Grady  here  came  in  and  asked  for  a 
cup  of  tea. 

""Who  made  this  tea?"  he  demanded. 
"You,  Aurelle?  How  much  tea  did  you 
put  in?" 

"  One  spoonful  for  each  cup." 

"  Now  listen  to  an  axiom  —  one  spoonful 
for  each  cup  and  then  one  for  the  pot.  It  is 
curious  that  no  Frenchman  knows  how  to 
make  tea." 

Aurelle  changed  the  subject. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       75 

"  The  padre  was  telling  me  about  his  wed- 
ding." 

"  A  padre  ought  not  to  be  married,"  said 
the  doctor.  "  You  know  what  St.  Paul  said, 
*  A  married  man  seeks  to  please  his  wife  and 
not  tiod.'  " 

"  You  have  put  j^our  foot  in  it  now,"  said 
Aurelle.  "  Don't  talk  to  him  about  St.  Paul; 
he  has  just  been  strafing  him  badly." 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  the  padre,  "  I  only 
strafed  a  bishop."  , 

"  Padi'e,"  said  the  doctor,  "  judge  not — " 

"  Oh,  I  know,"  said  the  padre,  "  the  Master 
said  that,  but  He  did  not  know  any  bishops." 
Then  he  returned  to  his  old  subject.  "  Tell 
me,  O'Grady,  you  are  Irish;  why  have  the 
Catholic  chaplains  more  influence  than  we?  " 

"  Padre,"  said  the  doctor,  "  listen  to  a  par- 
able. It  is  your  turn.  A  man  had  commit- 
ted a  murder.  He  was  not  susj)ected,  but 
remorse  made  him  restless  and  miserable. 
One  day,  as  he  was  passing  an  Anglican 
church,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  secret  would 
be  easier  to  bear  if  he  could  share  it  with  some 
one  else,  so  he  entered  and  asked  the  vicar  to 
hear  his  confession. 


76       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  The  vicar  was  a  very  well  brought  up 
young  man,  and  had  been  at  Eton  and  Oxford. 
Enchanted  with  this  rare  piece  of  luck,  he 
said  eagerly,  '  Most  certainly,  open  your  heart 
to  me;  you  can  talk  to  me  as  if  I  were  your 
father ! '  The  other  began :  '  I  have  killed  a 
man.'  The  vicar  sprang  to  his  feet.  '  And 
you  come  here  to  tell  me  that  ?  Horrible  mur- 
derer! I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not  my  duty 
as  a  citizen  to  take  you  to  the  nearest  police 
station.  In  any  case  it  is  my  duty  as  a  gen- 
tleman not  to  keep  you  a  moment  longer  un- 
der my  roof.' 

"  And  the  man  went  away.  A  few  miles 
farther  on  he  saw  a  Roman  Catholic  church. 
A  last  hope  made  him  enter,  and  he  knelt 
down  behind  some  old  women  who  were  wait- 
ing by  the  confessional.  When  his  turn  came 
he  could  just  distinguish  the  priest  praying  in 
the  shadows,  his  head  in  his  hands.  *  Father,' 
he  said,  '  I  am  not  a  Catholic,  but  I  should 
like  to  confess  to  you.'  *  I  am  listening,  my 
son.'     *  Father,  I  have  committed  murder.' 

"  He  awaited  the  effect  of  this  terrible  rev- 
elation. In  the  austere  silence  of  the  church 
the  voice  of  the  priest  said  simply,  *  How  many 
times,  my  son? '  " 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       'j'j 

"  Doctor,"  said  the  padre,  "  you  know  that 
I  am  Scotch.  I  can  only  take  in  a  story  a 
week  after  I  hear  it." 

"  That  one  will  take  you  longer,  padre," 
said  the  doctor. 


CHAPTER  X 

SW.  TARKINGTON,  an  officer  of 
fifty-tliree,  honorary  lieutenant  and 
quartermaster,  was  possessed  of  a  vain 
but  keen  desire  to  win  one  more  ribbon  be- 
fore retiring.  The  laws  of  nature  and  eight- 
een years  of  good  conduct  had  given  him  the 
South  African  medal  and  the  long  service 
ribbon.  But  with  a  Httle  luck  even  an  honor- 
aiy  lieutenant  may  pick  up  a  Military  Cross 
if  the  bullets  fall  in  the  right  place.  That  is 
why  Tarkington  was  always  to  be  found  in 
dangerous  corners  where  he  had  no  business, 
and  that  is  why,  on  the  day  Loos  was  taken, 
he  wandered  with  his  rheumatic  old  joints  over 
the  soaking  battlefield  and  carried  in  eighteen 
wounded  men  on  his  back.  But  he  met  no 
general  and  no  one  knew  anything  about  it, 
except  the  wounded,  who  have  no  influence. 
From  there  the  regiment  was  sent  to  the 
north  and  went  into  the  line  in  the  Ypres 
salient.     There  existed,   no   doubt,   excellent 

78 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       79 

sentimental  and  military  reasons  for  defend- 
ing this  piece  of  ground,  but  as  a  winter  resi- 
dence it  left  much  to  be  desired.  Tarkington 
did  not  fear  the  danger — shells  were  part  of 
the  day's  work — but  his  rheumatism  feared  the 
water,  and  the  rain  falUng  incessantly  on  the 
greasy  clay  made  a  damp  and  icy  paste  which 
no  doctor  would  recommend  for  the  oiling  of 
old  joints.  Tarkington,  whose  painfully  swol- 
len feet  now  made  the  shortest  march  a  Chi- 
nese torture,  finally  realized  that  he  must  ap- 
ply to  be  sent  to  hospital. 

"  It's  just  my  luck,"  he  said  to  his  con- 
fidant, the  sergeant-major.  "  I  have  the  pain 
without  the  wound." 

So  he  went  off  limping  and  swearing  to  find 
the  colonel  in  his  dug-out,  and  told  him  of  the 
state  of  his  legs. 

The  colonel  was  in  a  bad  temper  that  morn- 
ing. A  communication  from  the  headquarters 
of  the  division  had  pointed  out  to  him  that  the 
proportion  of  trench  feet  in  his  regiment  had 
reached  3.6  per  cent.,  whereas  the  average  of 
the  corps  was  only  2.7.  And  would  he  take 
the  necessary  precautions  to  reduce  his  per- 
centage in  the  future? 

The  necessary  precautions  had  been  taken; 


8o       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

he  had  sent  for  the  doctor  and  given  him  the 
communication. 

"  And  see  here,  O' Grady.  You  may  have 
bronchitis,  sore  throats  and  gastric  enteritis, 
but  I  do  not  want  any  more  trench  feet  for 
three  days." 

You  may  imagine  how  Tarkington  was  re- 
ceived when  he  came  to  exhibit  his  paralysed 
feet. 

"  Now  that's  the  hmit.  I  send  down  an 
officer  for  trench  feet?  Read,  Tarkington, 
read,  and  do  you  imagine  I  am  going  to  trans- 
form 3.5  into  3.6  to  please  you?  Look  up, 
my  friend.  General  Routine  Orders  No.  324 
— '  Trench  Feet  result  from  a  contraction  of 
the  superficial  arteries  with  the  consequence 
that  the  skin  no  longer  being  nourished  dies 
and  mortifies.'  Therefore,  all  you  have  to  do 
is  to  watch  your  arteries.  Tarkington,  I  am 
extremely  sorry,  old  man,  but  that  is  all  I 
can  do  for  you." 

"  Just  my  luck,  said  the  old  man  to  his 
friend  the  sergeant-major.  "  I  have  thirty- 
seven  years'  service ;  I  have  never  been  ill ;  and 
when,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  ask  for 
sick  leave,  Jt  happens  on  the  very  same  day 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       8i 

that  headquarters  have  strafed  the  colonel  over 
that  very  subject." 

His  feet  became  red,  then  blue,  and  had  be- 
gun to  turn  black  when  the  colonel  went  away 
on  leave.  The  command  in  his  absence  was 
taken  over  by  Major  Parker,  who,  being  the 
second  son  of  a  peer,  paid  small  attention  to 
remarks  from  the  brigade.  He  saw  the  dis- 
tress of  the  unfortunate  Tarkington,  and  sent 
him  to  the  field  hospital,  where  they  decided 
to  send  him  to  England.  It  seemed  that 
Tarkington  was  not  the  kind  to  be  acclimatized 
in  the  Flemish  marshes. 

He  was  taken  to  B and  put  on  board 

the  hospital  ship  Saxoiiia^  with  the  wounded, 
doctors  and  nurses.  The  port  officials  had 
ascertained  to  their  annoyance  the  day  before 
that  a  number  of  floating  mines  were  in  the 
Channel. 

The  authorities  argued  over  the  origin  of 
these  mines,  which  the  N.T.O.  said  were  those 
of  the  Allies,  while  the  M.L.O.  thought  they 
were  the  enemy's.  But  there  was  no  argu- 
ment about  one  detail:  every  boat  that  had 
come  into  contact  with  one  had  been  cut  in 
two  and  sunk  immediately. 


82       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

The  captain  of  the  Saoconia  was  convinced 
that  the  Channel  was  free  from  mines.  He 
risked  it — and  was  blown  up. 

So  Tarkington  jumped  into  the  sea.  As  a 
good  soldier,  his  instinct  was  to  devote  his  last 
minutes  to  keeping  calm,  and  he  swam  about 
quietly  with  the  gas  mask  that  he  had  been 
advised  never  to  lose  hanging  round  his  neck. 

A  salvage  boat  picked  him  up,  unconscious, 
and  he  was  taken  to  a  hospital  on  the  English 
coast.  He  recovered  consciousness,  but  felt 
very  ill  from  his  immersion  in  the  water. 

"Just  like  my  cursed  luck!"  he  groaned. 
"  They  stop  me  starting  for  a  month,  and 
when  at  last  I  do  get  off,  it  is  in  the  only  ship 
that  has  gone  down  for  a  year," 

"  They  are  all  alike,"  said  the  colonel,  on 
his  return  from  leave.  "  Here's  a  blighter 
who  grumbles  at  having  his  feet  in  water,  and 
thea  takes  advantage  of  my  absence  to  go  and 
have  a  salt-water  bath !  " 

Now,  a  few  months  before.  King  George, 
after  his  accident  in  France,  had  crossed  the 
Channel  on  board  the  Saxonia.  The  fate  of 
the  ship  naturally  interested  His  Majesty, 
who  came  to  see  the  survivors,  and,  as  Tark- 
ington was  the  only  officer,  he  had  the  ines- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       83 

timable  privilege  of  quite  a  long  conversation 
with  the  King.  The  result  of  this  was  that  a 
few  days  afterwards  a  regiment  "  somewhere 
in  France  "  received  a  memorandum  from  gen- 
eral headquarters  asking  for  a  statement  of 
the  services  of  Tarkington,  S.  W. 

The  memorandum  being  accompanied  by 
certain  verbal  conmients  on  the  subject  of  "  a 
very  distinguished  personage  "  by  an  officer  in 
a  red-banded  gold-peaked  cap,  the  colonel 
wrote  nice  things — which  he  had  never  said  to 
him — of  Tarkington,  S.  W.,  and  the  sergeant- 
major  gave  details  of  the  brilliant  conduct  of 
the  quartermaster  at  Loos. 

The  London  Gazette  a  fortnight  later  re- 
capitulated these  exploits  in  a  supplement  to 
the  list  of  awards  and  honours,  and  Tarking- 
ton, honorary  captain,  M.C.,  meditating  on  his 
fate,  found  the  world  not  such  a  bad  place 
after  all. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  first  encounter  that  the  brigade 
had  with  the  village  was  not 
happy. 

The  village  looked  distrustfully  on  the  bri- 
gade, with  its  bare  knees  and  its  language  like 
the  rolling  of  a  drum.  The  brigade  found  the 
village  short  of  estaminets  and  pretty  girls. 
The  people  of  Hondezeele  bewailed  the  de- 
parture of  a  division  of  London  Territorials, 
with  their  soft  voices  and  full  pockets,  and 
wherever  Aurelle  went  they  did  nothing  but 
sing  the  praises  of  these  sons  of  their  adoption. 

"  Your  Scotchmen,  we  know  them.  We 
cannot  understand  what  they  say — and  my  lit- 
tle girls  can  speak  English." 

"Scotch — Promenade — no  bon!"  said  the 
little  girls. 

"  I  had  the  general's  chauffeur  here,"  went 
on  the  old  woman,  "  a  nice  boy,  sir.  Billy, 
they  called  him.  He  washed  up  for  me,  and 
pleasant  spoken,  too,  and  good  manners.     An 

84 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       85 

officers'  Mess?  Certainly  not.  I  can  make 
more  selling  fried  potatoes  and  beer  to  the 
boys,  and  even  eggs,  although  they  cost  me 
threepence  each." 

"  Fried  potatoes,  two  painnies  a  plate,  aigs 
and  bacon,  one  franc,"  chorused  the  little  girls. 

Aurelle  went  on  to  the  next  house,  where 
other  old  women  mourned  other  Billys, 
Harrj^s,  Gingers,  and  Darkies. 

One  stout  lady  explained  that  noise  gave 
her  palpitations;  another,  quite  seventy-five, 
that  it  was  not  proper  for  a  girl  living  alone. 

At  last  he  found  a  corpulent  lady  whom  he 
overwhelmed  with  such  eloquent  protestations 
that  she  could  not  get  in  a  word.  The  next 
morning,  he  sent  her  the  orderhes  with  the 
plate  and  crockery,  and  at  lunch-time  brought 
along  Parker  and  O' Grady.  The  servants 
were  waiting  for  them  at  the  door. 

"  Madame  is  a  regular  wdtch,  sir.  She's  a 
proper  fury,  that's  what  she  is,  sir." 

"  Madame  "  welcomed  them  with  confused 
complaints. 

"Ah!  bien  merci!  xVh!  bien  merci!  How 
I  have  regretted  having  agreed  to  have  you. 
I  have  not  had  a  wink  of  sleep  with  my  hus- 
band abusing  me.     He  nearly  beat  me,  mon- 


86       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

sieur.  Oh,  don't  touch  that !  I  forbid  you  to 
enter  my  clean  kitchen.  Wipe  your  feet,  and 
take  those  boxes  off  there!  " 

"  Put  the  boxes  in  the  dining-room,"  or- 
dered Aurelle,  to  conciliate  her. 

"  Thank  j^ou !  Put  your  dirty  boxes  in  my 
dining-room,  with  my  beautiful  table  and  my 
fine  dresser!     I  should  think  so,  indeed!" 

"  But,  in  heaven's  name,  madame,"  said 
Aurelle,  quietly,  "  where  shall  I  put  them? " 

He  half  opened  a  door  at  the  end  of  the 
dining-room. 

"  Will  you  kindly  leave  that  door  alone ! 
My  lovely  salon,  where  I  do  not  even  go  my- 
self for  fear  of  making  it  dirty !  And,  besides, 
I  have  had  enough  of  your  Mess,  I'm  about 
tired  of  it." 

A  little  later,  Aurelle  went  into  Madame 
Lemaire's,  the  draper's,  to  buy  some  chocolate. 
She  had  relegated  all  her  pre-war  trade  to  a 
corner  of  the  shop,  and  now  sold,  like  the  rest 
of  the  village,  Quaker  Oats,  Woodbine  ciga- 
rettes, and  post-cards  with  the  words :  "  From 
your  Soldier  Boy." 

"While  she  was  serving  him,  Aurelle  espied 
behind  the  shop  a  charming,  bright  little  apart- 
ment, decorated  with  plates  on  the  wall,  and  a 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       87 

clean  cloth,  with  green  and  white  squares,  on 
the  tahle.  He  strolled  carelessly  towards  the 
door.  Madame  Lemaire  looked  suspiciously 
at  him  and  folded  her  arms  across  her  enor- 
mous bust. 

''^Would  you  believe,  madame,  that  there 
are  in  this  village  people  so  unpatriotic  as  to 
refuse  to  take  in  officers,  who  do  not  know 
where  to  eat  their  meals?  " 

"Is  it  possible?"  said  Madame  Lemaire, 
blushing. 

He  told  her  who  they  were. 

"  Ah,  the  carpenter's  wife !  "  said  Madame 
Lemaire,  turning  up  her  nose  in  disgust.  "  I 
am  not  sm-prised.  They  come  from  Moeve- 
kerke,  and  the  people  of  Moevekerke  are  all 
bad." 

"  But  it  seems  to  me,"  insinuated  Aurelle 
gently,  "  that  you  have  a  room  here  that  would 
just  do.' 


j> 


A  week  later  the  village  and  the  brigade 
were  tasting  the  pure  joys  of  the  honeymoon. 
In  each  house  a  Jack,  a  Ginger  or  a  Darkey 
helped  to  wash  up,  called  the  old  lady  Granny, 
and  joked  with  the  girls.  The  London  Ter- 
ritorials were  quite  forgotten.     At  night,  in 


88       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

the  barns,  beribboned  bagpipes  accompanied 
the  monotonous  dances, 

Aurelle  had  lodged  the  padre  at  Madame 
Potiphar's,  a  lively  young  widow  to  whom  the 
divisions,  billeted  in  turn  in  the  village,  had 
handed  on  this  nickname,  like  a  local  password. 

The  virtue  of  the  padre,  which  had  protected 
him  against  the  solid  charms  of  three  young 
negresses,  feared  nothing  from  the  manoeuvres 
of  a  village  Potiphar. 

Parker  and  O' Grady  shared  a  large  room 
in  the  inn.  They  called  the  publican  and  his 
wife  Papa  and  Mamma.  Lucie  and  Berthe, 
the  daughters  of  the  house,  taught  them 
French.  Lucie  was  six  feet  high;  she  was 
pretty,  slender,  and  fair.  Berthe  was  more 
substantial  and  remarkably  good-natured. 
These  two  fine  Flemish  girls,  honest  without 
prudishness,  greedy  of  gain,  lacking  in  culture 
but  not  in  shrewdness,  were  the  admiration 
of  Major  Parker. 

Although  their  father  was  in  a  fair  way  to 
making  a  fortune  by  selling  the  Tommies 
English  beer  made  in  France,  they  never 
thought  of  asking  him  for  money  for  their 
clothes  or  of  making  a  servant  work  in  their 
stead. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       89 

"  One  ought  to  be  able  to  fight  when  one 
leaves  such  women  at  home,"  said  the  major 
admiringly. 

The  father  was  the  same  sort.  He  de- 
scribed to  Aurelle  the  death  of  his  son,  a  splen- 
did boy,  three  times  mentioned  in  despatches. 
He  talked  of  him  with  a  pride  and  resigna- 
tion truly  admirable. 

Aurelle  advised  the  publican,  if  he  had  a 
few  hundred  francs  to  spare,  to  put  them  in 
the  War  Loan. 

*'  I  have  already  put  in  fifty  thousand 
francs,"  ^aid  the  old  man.  "  I  shall  wait  a 
little  now." 

The  whole  village  was  rich. 

Colonel  Bramble  gave  two  sous  one  day  to 
Madame  Lemaire's  son,  an  urchin  of  five 
or  six. 

"  To  buy  some  sweets  with,"  Aurelle  told 
him. 

"  Oh,  no,  I  don't  care  for  them." 

"  What  will  you  do  with  your  sous,  then?  " 

"  Put  them  in  my  money-box  till  I  have  got 
enough  to  get  a  deposit  book  in  the  Savings 
Bank ;  then,  when  I  am  grown  up,  I  shall  buy 
some  land." 

That  evening  Aurelle  repeated  this  to  Lucie 


90       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

and  Berthe,  thinking  it  would  amuse  them. 
He  soon  found  out  that  no  one  was  amused: 
jokes  about  money  were  sacrilege.  The  pub- 
lican related  a  httle  moral  story  to  make  this 
clear. 

"  WTien  I  was  small,"  he  said,  "  I  often  used 
to  go  on  messages  into  the  town  for  Monsieur 
le  cure,  and  each  time  he  gave  me  two  sous, 
which  I  took  to  my  father.  But  after  a  time. 
Monsieur  le  cure  made  old  Sophie,  his  servant, 
send  me  on  his  commissions  and  she  never  gave 
me  my  two  sous.  My  father,  who  asked  me 
for  them,  was  very  indignant.  He  consulted 
my  grandfather,  and  the  whole  family  were 
called  in  one  evening  to  discuss  the  matter. 

"  My  father  said,  '  The  child  cannot  go  and 
complain  to  Monsieur  le  cure,  because  if  it  is 
he  who  has  stopped  the  two  sous  he  might  be 
offended.'  '  And  if  it  is  old  Sophie  who  has 
diddled  the  child  out  of  it  she  would  box  his 
ears,'  said  my  mother.  My  grandfather,  who 
was  no  fool,  hit  upon  the  best  way.  He  said 
to  me,  *  You  will  go  and  make  your  confession 
to  Monsieur  le  cure.  You  will  tell  him  that 
you  have  sinned  by  getting  angry  with  old 
Sophie  because  she  sent  you  to  the  town  with- 
out giving  you  anything.' 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       91, 

"  It  was  a  great  success.  '  What,'  said  the 
cure.  '  The  old  wretch !  She  charged  me  for 
them  every  time.  Release  me  from  the  secret 
of  the  confessional  and  I  will  give  her  a  good 
talking-to ! '  I  remembered  that  her  hand  was 
hea\y  and  I  did  not  release  him ;  but  in  future 
he  always  sent  me  himself." 

The  schoolmistress  from  Lille,  who  pos- 
sessed the  only  piano  in  the  village,  explained 
to  Aurelle  that  she  had  had  to  cut  out  of  her 
lesson  the  whole  chapter  on  economy  and 
thrift,  substituting  a  lesson  on  generosity.  A 
little  girl  of  eight  then  said  to  her,  "  I  can 
never  do  that,  mademoiselle.  My  mother  is 
mean,  and  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  meaner  than 
she." 

Meanwhile  the  Highlanders  were  turning 
the  King's  shillings  into  glasses  of  beer,  and 
were  showering  on  these  economical  little  girls 
embroidered  aprons,  sugar-plums  and  post- 
cards, with  "  From  Your  Soldier  Boy "  on 
them,  price  ninepence. 

The  plump  and  active  mothers  of  these  nice 
little  Flemish  girls  sold  the  aprons  and  post- 
cards. 

"  x\s,  messiou,"  said  Colonel  Bramble,  "  be- 
fore the  War  we  used  to  talk  about  frivolous 


92       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

France;  now  it  is  stern  and  prudent  France." 

"  Yes,"  added  the  doctor,  "  the  French  are 
hard  and  severe  on  themselves.  I  begin  to 
understand  the  Boche  who  said,  '  Man  does 
not  aspire  to  happiness,  only  Englishmen.' 
There  is,  among  your  peasants  of  the  north,  an 
admirable  voluntary  asceticism." 

"  Did  you  ever  see,  messiou,"  said  the  padre, 
"  in  our  country,  before  the  War,  the  French- 
man of  the  music-hall?  The  little  fellow  with 
the  black  beard,  who  gesticulates  and  ha- 
rangues? I  believed  it,  messiou,  and  never 
pictured  these  devout  and  industrious  vil- 
lagers." 

"  I  like  to  see  them  on  Sunday  morning," 
said  the  major,  "  when  the  bell  for  Mass  starts 
ringing,  and  they  all  come  out  of  their  houses 
together,  old  men,  women  and  children,  as  if 
they  were  going  to  a  theatre.  Ah,  messiou, 
why  didn't  you  tell  us  all  about  this  before 
the  War?"  ^ 

"  The  reason  is,"  said  Aurelle,  "  that  we 
didn't  know  it  ourselves." 


CHAPTER  XII 

ORION'S  belt  rose  higher  in  the  wintry 
sky;  the  roads  were  frozen  hard.  The 
mail  vans  overflowed  more  and  more 
every  day  with  enormous  quantities  of  pud- 
dings and  Christmas  cards,  and  the  festive  sea- 
son recalled  the  joys  of  life  to  the  division  and 
the  village. 

The  preparations  for  the  Christmas  dinner 
occupied  Aurelle  and  the  padre  for  some  time. 
The  latter  found  a  turkey  worthy  of  the  roj^al 
table  at  a  farm;  Aurelle  hunted  from  house 
to  house  for  chestnuts;  Parker  attended  him- 
self to  the  cooking,  and  mixed  a  salad  of  which 
he  was  very  proud,  but  the  colonel  examined 
it  long  and  doubtfully.  As  for  the  doctor,  he 
was  sent  off  with  Aurelle  to  Bailleul  to  buy 
some  champagne,  and  insisted  on  sampling 
several  different  brands,  which  inspired  him 
to  give  vent  to  some  strange  doctrines  on 
things  in  general  on  the  way  home. 

He  obtained  permission  to  invite  his  friends 

93 


94       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Berthe  and  Lucie  to  come  in  at  the  end  of  din- 
ner to  drink  a  bumper  of  champagne  in  the 
Mess,  and  when  they  entered  in  their  Sunday 
dresses,  the  colonel  played  "  Destiny  Waltz," 
speed  61.  The  orderlies  had  hung  a  great 
bunch  of  mistletoe  over  the  door,  and  the  girls 
asked  ingenuously  if  it  was  not  the  custom  in 
England  to  kiss  under  the  mistletoe. 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  said  the  doctor,  and  with 
his  hands  behind  his  back,  he  pecked  Berthe 
on  the  cheek  which  she  tm-ned  towards  him. 
Parker,  equally  nervous,  did  the  same  to 
pretty  Lucie,  and  Aurelle  gave  them  both  a 
good  hug  in  the  French  way. 

"That's  fine,  mademoiselle?"  said  the  lit- 
tle doctor. 

"  Yes,"  said  Lucie  with  a  sigh.  "  We  wish 
it  was  always  Christmas." 

*'  Oh,  but  why?  "  said  the  doctor. 

"  Think  how  dull  it  will  be  for  us  after  the 
War,"  replied  Berthe,  "  when  you  are  all 
gone!  Before,  one  did  not  think  of  it — one 
saw  no  one — one  worked,  one  knew  no  better, 
but  now,  without  the  boys,  the  village  will  be 
empty  indeed.  My  sister  and  I  will  not  stay 
here.     We  will  go  to  Paris  or  London." 

*'  Oh,  but  that's  a  pity,"  said  the  doctor. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       95 

"  No,  no,"  said  Aurelle,  "  you  will  just  get 
married.  You  will  marry  rich  farmers,  you 
will  be  very  busy  with  yom*  beasts  and  your 
chickens  and  you  will  forget  all  about  us." 

"  It's  easy  to  say  '  get  married,'  "  observed 
Berthe,  "  but  it  takes  two  for  that.  And  if 
there  are  not  enough  men  for  all  the  girls  we 
shall  probably  get  left  in  the  lurch." 

"  Every  man  will  have  several  wives,"  said 
Aurelle.  "  You  will  be  much  happier ;  with 
one  husband  between  you  two,  you  will  only 
have  half  the  housework  to  do." 

"  I  do  not  think  I  should  like  it,"  said  Lucie, 
who  was  very  refined. 

But  the  padre,  to  whom  the  doctor  had  just 
treacherously  translated  Aurelle's  cynical  pro- 
posals, indignantly  protested. 

"  You  ought  not  to  criticize  polygamy, 
padre,"  said  the  doctor.  "  Re-read  your 
Bible.  What  have  you  to  say  about  old 
Laban,  who,  having  sold  his  two  daughters 
to  the  same  man,  payable  monthly  for  four- 
teen years,  gave  the  purchaser  in  addition  two 
waiting-maids  as  a  bonus?" 

"  But,"  said  the  padre,  "  I  am  not  respon- 
sible for  the  actions  of  a  doubtful  patriarch. 
I  have  no  sympathy  with  Laban." 


96       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

*'  No  more  have  I,"  said  Amelle.  "  This 
Dufayel  of  marriage  has  always  profoundly 
disgusted  me,  but  more  on  account  of  his  mat- 
rimonial methods  than  for  having  gone  in  for 
the  polygamy  natural  to  his  tribe.  Moreover, 
is  the  number  of  women  to  be  apportioned  to 
one  man  a  question  of  morals?  It  appears 
to  me  to  be  a  question  of  arithmetic.  If  there 
are  nearly  as  many  women  as  men,  monogamy 
is  the  rule;  if  for  some  reason  the  number  of 
women  is  increased,  polygamy  is  perhaps  bet- 
ter for  the  general  welfare." 

The  two  girls,  who  understood  this  conver- 
sation much  less  than  the  "  promenade  "  and 
the  "  na  poo  "  of  the  Tommies,  went  up  to  the 
colonel,  who  talked  to  them  pYiternally  in  his 
gruff  way  and  got  the  "  Caruso  "  record  for 
them  out  of  its  pink  cover. 

"  You  have  some  weird  ideas  about  animal 
psychology,  Aurelle,"  said  the  doctor.  "  If 
you  have  observed  nature,  you  would  have 
proved,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  question  of 
the  numbers  of  mates  is  certainly  not  a  ques- 
tion of  arithmetic.  With  gnats,  ten  females 
are  born  to  one  male.  Now  gnats  are  not 
polygamous.  Nine  out  of  those  females  die 
spinsters.     It  is  onty  the  old  maids  who  bite 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       97 

us,  from  which  one  sees  that  cehbacy  engen- 
ders ferocity  among  insects  as  well  as  among 
women.'* 

"  I  have  known  some  charming  old  maids," 
said  Aurelle. 

"Indeed!"  said  the  doctor.  "But,  how- 
ever that  may  be,  the  number  of  married  pairs 
varies  simply  according  to  the  way  the  spe- 
cies feed.  Rabbits,  Turks,  sheep,  artists,  and, 
generally  speaking,  all  herbivorous  creatures 
are  polygamous;  while  foxes.  Englishmen, 
wolves,  bankers,  and,  generally  speaking,  all 
carnivorous  animals  are  monogamists.  That 
is  because  of  the  difficulty  which  carnivorous 
animals  find  in  rearing  theii*  young  until  they 
are  strong  enough  to  kill  for  themselves.  As 
for  polyandry,  it  occurs  in  wretched  countries 
hke  Thibet,  where  several  men  must  unite 
forces  to  keep  one  wife  and  her  progeny." 

The  howls  of  Caruso  rendered  all  conversa- 
tion impossible  for  a  minute,  then  Aurelle  said 
to  Lucie :  "  The  other  girls  in  the  i-illage  will 
perhaps  find  it  difficult  to  get  husbands,  it  is 
true,  but  you  and  your  sister  need  not  worry; 
you  are  the  prettiest,  and  you  will  soon  have 
the  richest  father.  You  will  have  fine  mar- 
riage portions." 


98       The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 


(( 


Yes,  that's  true.  Perhaps  they  will  marry 
us  for  our  money,"  said  Berthe,  who  was 
modest. 

"  I  should  not  care  to  be  married  for  my 
money,"  said  Lucie. 

"Oh,  strange  creature!"  said  the  doctor, 
"  you  would  like  to  be  loved  for  your  face 
alone,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  position  in  space 
of  the  albuminoids  and  fatty  molecules  placed 
there  by  the  working  of  some  Mendelian  he- 
redity, but  you  would  dislike  to  be  loved 
for  your  fortune,  to  which  you  have  contrib- 
uted by  your  labour  and  your  domestic  vir- 
tues," 

Berthe  regarded  the  doctor  nervously  and 
reminded  her  sister  that  thej'-  had  some  glasses 
to  wash  before  going  to  bed;  so  they  emptied 
their  bumpers  and  departed. 

After  a  restful  silence,  Major  Parker  asked 
Aurelle  to  explain  the  institution  of  the  mar- 
riage dot^  and,  when  he  had  grasped  it,  indig- 
nantly replied: 

"  WTiat  ?  A  man  receives  this  splendid  gift, 
a  pretty  woman,  and  he  exacts  money  before 
accepting  her?  But  what  you  tell  me  is  mon- 
strous, Aurelle,  and  dangerous.  Instead  of 
marrying    beautiful    and    good    women    who 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble       99 

would  have  beautiful  and  good  cliildi-en,  you 
marry  ugly,  quarrelsome  creatures  provided 
with  a  cheque-book." 

"  '  He  who  has  found  a  good  wife  has  found 
great  happiness,'  "  quoted  the  padre,  "  '  but  a 
quarrelsome  woman  is  like  a  roof  that  lets  in 
the  rain.* " 

*'  It  is  wrong  to  suppose  the  children  of  love- 
matches  better  made  than  others,"  interrupted 
the  doctor,  becoming  rather  warlike,  obviously 
owing  to  champagne.  "  Oh,  I  know  the  old 
theory:  every  man  chooses  his  natural  com- 
plement, and  thus  rears  children  which  revert 
to  the  average  type  of  the  race.  Big  men 
like  little  women,  large  noses  like  little  snub- 
noses,  and  very  feminine  men  fall  in  love  with 
Amazons. 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  nervous,  short- 
sighted, intellectual  man  marries  a  pedantic, 
nervous,  short-sighted  woman  because  their 
tastes  are  similar.  Good  riders  make  ac- 
quaintance with  girls  who  hunt,  and  marry 
them  for  their  sporting  tastes. 

"  So,  far  from  reverting  to  the  average  type, 
love-matches  tend  to  exaggerate  the  differ- 
ences. And  then  is  it  desirable  for  selection 
to  operate?     There  are  very  few  really  bril- 


loo     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

liant  men  who  have  not  had  at  least  one  mad- 
man among"  their  ancestors.  The  modern 
world  has  been  founded  by  three  epileptics — 
Alexander,  Julius  Caesar  and  Luther,  without 
mentioning  Napoleon,  who  was  not  altogether 
well  balanced." 

"  In  a  thousand  men  of  genius,  how  many 
mad  relations?  "  asked  the  colonel. 

*'  I  can't  tell  you,  sir,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  You  can  talk  nonsense  to  your  heart's  con- 
tent,  doctor,"  said  Major  Parker.  "  But  as 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  if  I  ever  marry,  I  shall 
only  marry  a  very  pretty  woman.  What's  the 
name  of  that  charming  cinema  actress  we  saw 
together  at  Hazebrouck,  Aurelle?'* 
Napierkowska,  sir." 

Oh,  yes.  Well,  if  1  knew  her  I  would 
marry  her  at  once.  And  I  am  sure  that  she 
is  if  anything  better  and  more  intelligent  than 
the  average  woman." 

"  My  friend  Shaw,"  said  the  doctor,  "  says 
that  to  desire  to  be  perpetually  in  the  society 
of  a  pretty  woman,  until  the  end  of  one's  days, 
is  as  if,  because  one  likes  good  wine,  one  wished 
always  to  have  one's  mouth  full  of  it." 

"  Rather  a  flimsy  argument,"  observed  the 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      loi 

major.     "  For  surely  that  is  better  than  hav- 
ing it  always  full  of  bad  wine." 

"  Anyhow,"  the  doetor  replied,  "  women 
who  exhibit  more  surely  than  us  the  underly- 
ing instincts  of  mankind  are  far  from  bearing 
out  your  theory;  I  know  very  few  who  make 
a  point  of  marrying  a  good-looking  man." 

"  Well,  do  you  know  the  story  about  Fra- 
zer?  "  said  the  major. 

"Which  Frazer?"  said  the  colonel.  "  G.R. 
of  the  60th?" 

"  No,  no.  A.  K.  of  the  5th  Gurkhas— the 
one  who  played  polo  for  the  regiment  in  1900, 
an  awfully  good-looking  fellow,  the  finest  chin 
in  the  army." 

"  Oh,  I  know  him,"  said  the  colonel,  "  the 
son  of  old  Sir  Thomas.  His  father  sold  me 
a  damned  good  pony,  when  I  was  a  subaltern, 
and  I  only  paid  200  rupees  for  it.  Well, 
what  is  his  story?  " 

At  the  beginning  of  1915,"  said  the  major, 

Frazer,  who  was  crossing  London  on  his  way 
home  on  leave,  went  to  the  theatre  one  evening 
alone.  Towards  the  end  of  the  first  act,  he 
felt  vaguely  that  some  one  was  staring  at  him. 
He  looked  up  and  saw  a  woman  in  a  box  look- 


I02     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

ing  at  him.  But,  owing  to  the  darkness  of  the 
theatre,  he  could  not  distinguish  her  features. 

*'  In  the  interval,  he  tried  to  see  her,  but 
she  had  withdrawn  to  the  back  of  her  box. 
During  the  next  two  acts  she  looked  at  him 
fixedly.  Frazer,  decidedly  intrigued,  was 
waiting  at  the  exit  of  the  theatre,  when  a  mag- 
nificent footman  approached  him,  saying,  '  A 
lady  wishes  to  speak  to  you,  sir,'  and  led  him 
to  the  door  of  a  carriage  which  had  stopped 
in  a  side  street. 

"  *  You  do  not  know  me.  Captain  Frazer,' 
said  a  very  pretty  voice,  *  but  I  know  you ; 
have  you  anything  to  do  this  evening  or  will 
you  come  to  supper  with  me? '  Frazer  did 
what  we  should  all  have  done." 

"  He  ran  away? "  said  the  padre. 

*'  He  got  into  the  carriage,"  said  Parker. 
"  He  was  asked  to  allow  himself  to  be  blind- 
folded. When  the  bandage  was  taken  off  he 
found  himself  in  a  charming  room,  alone  with 
the  fair  unknown,  who  was  decolletee  and 
wearing  a  mask,  and  who  had  the  most  beau- 
tiful shoulders  in  the  world!  " 

"  Is  this  by  Dumas  pere  or  R.  L.  Steven- 
son? "  asked  Aurelle. 

**  It  is  a  story  of  what  actually. happened  in 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      103 

January,  1915,  and  was  told  me  by  a  man  who 
never  lies,"  said  Major  Parker.  "  The  house 
was  in  silence.  No  servant  appeared,  but 
Frazer,  delighted,  was  offered  by  the  unknown 
herself  what  you  French  call,  I  believe,  bon 
souper,  bon  gite  et  le  reste. 

"  At  break  of  day,  she  bandaged  his  eyes 
again.  He  told  her  how  much  he  had  enjoyed 
himself  and  asked  her  when  he  could  see  her 
again.  '  Never,'  she  replied,  '  and  I  take  it 
that  I  have  your  word  of  honour  as  a  gentle- 
man and  a  soldier  that  you  will  never  try  to 
find  me  again.  But  in  one  year  from  now, 
to  the  day,  go  back  to  the  same  theatre  where 
we  met,  and  there  will,  perhaps,  be  a  letter 
for  you.'  Then  she  saw  him  into  the  car- 
riage again,  and  asked  him  to  keep  his  eyes 
blindfolded  for  ten  minutes:  when  he  took 
off  the  bandage,  he  was  in  Trafalgar 
Square. 

"  Frazer  naturally  moved  heaven  and  earth 
to  get  leave  in  January,  1916,  and  on  the  eve- 
ning of  the  anniversary  of  his  adventure  ap- 
peared at  the  box  office  of  the  theatre  and 
asked  for  a  stall.  *  Have  you  by  any  chance 
a  letter  for  me? '  he  said,  giving  his  name.  The 
clerk  handed  him  an  envelope,  and  Frazer, 


104     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

eagerly  opening  it,  read  this  short  line :  '  It  is 
a  fine  boy.     Thank  you.'  " 

"  What  is  still  more  strange,"  said  the  doc- 
tor with  sarcasm,  "  is  that  another  good-look- 
ing lad  told  me  the  same  story  some  time  be- 
fore the  war,  and  that  that  time  he  was  the 
hero  of  it." 

"  Then  this  lady  must  have  several  chil- 
dren," said  the  colonel. 


Y 


CHAPTER  XIII 

OU,  pretty  shopgirl,  whose  fresh  charm 

Was  once  engrossing. 
And  you,  who  kept,  with  strong  bare  arm, 

The  level-crossing, 


And  you,  the  Teacher,  you  who  went 

In  dress  less  candid. 
Or,  soft-eyed,  o'er  your  keyboard  leant. 

And  slender-handed ; 

Fair  Baker's  wife,  who  had  our  love, 

Yet  counted  pence 
As  one  who  had  a  soul  above 

Their  vulgar  sense; 

All  you  whose  wayside  smile  could  then 

So  quickly  chase 
The  black  despond  of  us  poor  men 

Those  hateful  days! 

Who  sprawled  across  your  open  door 

And  loosed  their  speech 
To  tell  of  hopes  and  plans  in  store. 

Beyond  their  reach.  .  .  . 

105 


io6     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

You  did  not  always  understand, 

But  never  mind, 
No  wiser  they,  the  glitt'ing  band 

We  left  behind. 

No  man  but  thinks  his  worth  impressed 

Where  he  desires; 
And  there,  as  in  a  mirror  drest, 

Himself  admires. 

And  Margot,  to  his  talk  resigned, 

One  ear  in  guile  lent, 
A  very  Sevigne  he'll  find 

So  she  be  silent. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EXTRACTS  FROM   AURELLE's  DIARY 

Hondezeele,  January  19 — . 

MADAME  LEMAIRE  has  presented 
the  Mess  with  a  bottle  of  old  brandy, 
and  the  doctor  is  in  very  good  form 
this  evening.  He  is  the  true  Irish  type;  a 
lover  of  surprising  epigrams. 

He  says,  "  We  owe  to  the  Middle  Ages  the 
two  worst  inventions  of  humanity — romantic 
love  and  gunpowder."  Again,  "  The  whole 
reason  of  this  War  is  because  the  Germans 
have  no  sense  of  humour." 

But,  above  all,  you  nmst  hear  his  scientific 
and  precise  demonstration  of  his  favourite 
theory:  "Two  telegrams  contrary  in  sense, 
and  from  officers  equal  in  rank,  cancel  one 
another." 

January  4th. 
Rode  with  the  colonel  and  Parker.     How 
delicate  and  clear  the  atmosphere  is   in  this 

107 


io8     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

northern  part  of  France!  The  colonel  was 
highly  indignant  to  hear  that  I  have  never 
been  out  hunting. 

"  You  must,  messiou,  it  is  the  only  sport. 
You  juinp  banks  as  high  as  your  horse.  At 
eighteen  I  had  nearly  broken  my  neck  twice. 
It  is  most  exciting." 

"  Yes,"  said  Parker,  "  one  day  I  was  gal- 
loping in  a  wood  and  a  branch  went  into  my 
right  eye.  It  is  a  miracle  I  wasn't  killed. 
Another  time — " 

He  described  how  his  horse  fell  on  the  top 
of  him  and  broke  two  of  his  ribs.  Then 
both  of  them  together,  certain  of  having  con- 
vinced me: 

'*  You  must  hunt  after  the  War,  messiou." 

January  7th. 

This  morning,  I  do  not  know  why,  some 
French  troops  came  through  Hondezeele. 
The  village  and  I  were  delighted.  We  like 
the  shrill  bagpipes,  but  no  music  in  the  world 
is  hke  "  Sidi-Brahim "  and  "  Sambre-et- 
Meuse." 

I  was  pleased,  too,  to  be  able  to  show  Par- 
ker these  Chasseurs  a  pied,  as  all  he  had  seen 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      109 

of  our  army  were  old  Territorials.     He  was 
much  impressed. 

"  They  are  as  fine  as  the  Highlanders,"  he 
told  me. 

And  then  he  described  the  Lennox  as  they 
were  when  he  joined  as  second  Heutenant  in 
Egypt. 

"  I  was  forbidden  to  speak  at  Mess  for  six 
months.  An  excellent  practice !  It  taught  us 
to  realize  how  humble  we  were,  and  the  respect 
due  to  our  elders. 

"  If  some  '  swelled  head '  did  not  conform 
to  these  rules,  he  soon  found  his  things  all 
packed  up  in  his  room,  labelled  for  England. 
If  he  still  refused  to  understand,  he  was  called 
up  before  a  subaltern's  court-martial,  and 
heard  some  home  truths  about  himself. 

"  It  was  hard,  but  what  esprit  de  corps  and 
what  discipline  those  rough  ways  taught  us. 
We  shall  never  see  a  regiment  again  like  the 
Lennox  of  1914.  The  officer  of  to-day  has 
seen  active  service,  it's  true,  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  quite  sufficient  in  war  to  have 
good  health  and  no  more  imagination  than  a 
fish.  It  is  in  peace-time  that  one  ought  to 
judge  a  soldier." 


no     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  You  remind  me,"  said  the  doctor,  "  of  the 
sergeant-major  in  the  Guards  who  said: 
*  How  I  wish  the  war  would  finish  so  that  we 
could  have  real  manoeuvres  once  more ! '  " 

This  evening,  while  the  gramophone  was 
raging,  I  forced  myself  to  translate  into 
French  Rudyard  Kipling's  admirable  poem: 
"  If." 

I  showed  it  in  English  to  Parker  whom 
it  describes  so  well,  and  we  talked  about 
books.  I  made  the  mistake  of  mentioning 
Dickens. 

"  I  detest  Dickens,"  said  the  major.  "  I 
never  could  understand  how  anyone  could  find 
him  interesting.  His  books  are  all  stories  of 
the  lower  classes  and  Bohemians.  I  do  not 
want  to  know  how  they  live.  In  the  whole  of 
Dickens'  works  there  is  not  one  gentleman. 
No,  if  you  wish  to  know  the  chef-d'oeuvre  of 
Enghsh  novels  read  *  Jorrocks.'  " 

January  13th. 

A  little  English  telephonist  who  came  to 

mend  our  apparatus  said  to  me,  "  Telephones 

are  like  women,  sir.     No  one  really  knows 

an}i;hing  about  them.     One  fine  day,  some- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      1 1 1 

thing  goes  wrong;  you  try  to  find  out  why, 
no  good,  you  swear,  you  shake  them  up  a  bit 
and  all  is  well." 


January  14th. 

At  dinner  an  Irish  colonel  remarked: 

"  I  am  very  annoyed ;  during  my  last  leave 
I  rented  a  house  for  my  family,  and  now  my 
wife  writes  that  it  is  haunted.  The  owners 
really  ought  to  tell  one  these  things." 

"  Perhaps  thej'^  did  not  know  it,"  said  our 
indulgent  colonel. 

"  They  knew  it  very  well.  When  my  wife 
went  to  complain,  they  got  very  confused,  and 
ended  by  owning  up.  One  of  their  great- 
grandmothers  has  walked  from  the  drawing- 
room  to  her  old  bedroom  for  the  last  hundred 
and  fifty  years.  They  tried  to  excuse  them- 
selves by  saying  she  was  perfectly  harmless. 
That  is  possible,  and  I  am  quite  willing  to 
believe  it,  but  it  is  none  the  less  annoying  for 
my  wife.  Do  you  think  I  can  cancel  my 
lease? " 

I  here  risked  a  sceptical  remark,  but  the 
whole  Mess  jumped  on  me.  Irish  ghosts  are 
scientific  facts. 


112     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  But  why  do  phantoms  love  Irish  houses 
more  than  others? " 

"  Beeause,"  said  the  Irish  colonel,  "  we  are 
a  verv  sensitive  race  and  we  enter  into  com- 
munication  with  them  more  easily." 

And  he  crushed  me  with  technical  argu- 
ments on  wireless  telegraphy. 

January  15th. 

The  colonel,  having  found  out  this  morning 
that  a  motor-ambulance  was  going  into  Ypres, 
took  me  with  him.  In  front  of  the  hospital 
we  found  ourselves  wedged  in  by  a  terrible 
block  of  waggons,  under  a  fierce  bombard- 
ment. 

A  horse  with  its  carotid  artery  cut  by  a  bit 
of  shell,  and  only  held  up  by  the  shafts,  was 
writhing  in  agony  close  by  us.  The  drivers 
were  swearing.  Nothing  to  do  but  wait  pa- 
tiently in  our  car,  shaken  by  explosions. 

"  Dr.  Johnson  was  right,"  said  the  colonel 
to  me.  "  Whoever  wants  to  be  a  hero  ought 
to  drink  brandy." 

Then,  as  a  fresh  explosion  made  the  debris 
of  the  ruined  town  in  front  of  us  tremble, 
he  said: 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      113 

"  Messiou,  how  many  inhahitants  were  there 
in  Ypres  before  the  War?  " 

January  20th. 

We  are  going  to  leave  Hondezeele.  The 
red-hats  are  getting  agitated  and  ah*eady  one 
sees  the  cyclists  passing,  the  natural  advance- 
guard  of  our  migrations. 

We  were  beginning  to  love  this  country :  the 
village  and  the  brigade,  so  distrustful  of  one 
another  a  month  ago,  had  become  really  quite 
affectionate.     But  the  gods  are  jealous. 

Brigade  to  Tnarch — to-morrow's  sky 

Will  see  us  on  the  move, 
The  drums  and  pipes  will  sing  good-by 

To  every  light-o'-love. 

The  Highlanders,  their  kilts  a-swirl, 

Like  eddies  on  the  sand. 
With  steadfast  hymn  and  fiery  skirl. 

Must  join  the  devil's  band. 

When  Victory  unveils  the  sun. 

Cold  earth  shall  shrine  their  faith. 

But  every  field  and  fami  they  won 
Shall  know  their  constant  wraith. 

And  in  our  Flemish  villages  .  .  , 


1 14     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  our  suecessors, 
the  Canadians,  regarded  by  Madame  Lemaire 
and  her  little  boy  with  great  suspicion.  That 
won't  last  long. 


CHAPTER  XV 

A  GREAT  attack  was  in  preparation;  it 
was  a  terrible  secret  jealously  guarded 
by  headquarters;  but  Aurelle  was  in- 
formed of  it  several  days  beforehand  by  the 
German  communique  published  in  the  Times, 
and  by  Madame  Lemaire's  little  boy,  who  ad- 
vised him  not  to  repeat  it. 

However,  the  division  was  soon  ordered  to 
occupy  one  of  the  sectors  in  the  attack.  The 
padre,  optimistic  as  ever,  already  foresaw  tri- 
umphant marches,  but  the  colonel  gently  re- 
minded him  that  the  objectives  were  simjjly  a 
ridge,  which  in  peace-time  would  be  called  "  a 
slight  undulation  in  the  ground,"  and  two  vil- 
lages already  destroyed.  The  real  object  was 
to  engage  the  forces  of  the  enemy,  who  were 
at  that  moment  advancing  in  Russia.  But 
this  information  only  redoubled  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  padre. 

*'  You  can  say  what  you  like,  sir;  if  we  hold 
this  ridge  they  cannot  hold  out  in  the  valley, 
and  we  shall  break  through  their  line.     As  for 

116 


ii6     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

the  retreat  of  the  Russians,  that's  capital. 
The  Boche  gets  farther  from  his  base,  length- 
ens his  lines  of  communications,  and  he's 
done." 

"  He  is  not,"  said  the  colonel,  "  but  he  will 
be  one  day,  and  that's  all  that  matters." 

The  evening  of  the  offensive,  Aurelle  re- 
ceived orders  from  the  colonel  to  go  and  act 
as  liaison  officer  between  the  headquarters  of 
the  division  and  some  French  batteries,  which 
were  reinforcing  the  British  artillery  in  this 
sector.  He  wished  the  Lennox  good  luck  and 
left  them  for  a  day. 

He  spent  the  night  in  the  garden  of  the  lit- 
tle chateau  where  the  general  was  living.  The 
bombardment  thundered  on  without  ceasing. 
Aurelle  walked  up  and  down  the  paths  of  this 
garden,  which  had  been  pretty,  but  was  now 
honeycombed  with  trenches  and  dug-outs, 
while  camouflaged  huts  covered  the  lawns. 

Towards  midnight,  the  rain,  the  classic  rain 
of  an  offensive,  began  to  fall  in  large  drops. 
The  interpreter  took  shelter  in  a  shed  with 
some  chauffeurs  and  motor-cyclists.  He  al- 
ways liked  to  find  himself  among  this  class  of 
Englishmen  with  their  strong  language  and 
simple  minds.     These,  like  the  rest,  were  good 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      117 

fellows,  careless,  courageous  and  light-hearted. 
They  hununed  the  latest  music-hall  airs  from 
London,  showed  him  photographs  of  their 
wives,  sweethearts  and  babies,  and  asked  him 
when  the  damned  war  would  be  over.  They 
shared  on  this  subject  the  perfect  optimism 
of  the  padre. 

One  of  them,  a  little,  quick-witted  electri- 
cian, asked  Aurelle  to  explain  the  Alsatian 
question.  And  so  he  told  them  about  Saverne, 
the  march  past  of  the  Strasburg  students  be- 
fore Kleber's  statue,  the  pilgrimages  of  the 
Alsatians  to  B  elf  ore  for  the  14th  of  July 
Review,  and  about  the  young  men  who  at  the 
age  of  twenty  left  family  and  fortune  to  go 
to  France  and  become  soldiers. 

They  told  him  that  they  could  understand 
anyone  loving  France:  it  was  a  fine  country. 
All  the  same  there  were  not  enough  hedges  in 
the  landscape.  But  they  appreciated  the 
thrifty  qualities  of  the  women,  the  trees  along 
the  road,  and  the  out-of-door  cafes.  They 
talked  with  enthusiasm  about  Verdun,  but 
many  of  them  had  only  grasped  the  idea  of 
the  Entente  through  Carpentier's  victory  in 
London. 

The  day  dawned;  the  rain  was  now  falling 


ii8     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

in  torrents ;  on  the  lawn,  the  grass  and  soil  was 
trodden  into  a  sticky  mass.  Aurelle  went  up 
to  the  chateau;  he  met  an  aide-de-camp  whom 
he  knew  and  explained  his  orders. 

"  Oh,  5^es,"  he  was  told.  "  I  arranged  that 
myself  with  the  French  liaison  officer.  If  the 
telephone  from  the  batteries  happens  to  get 
cut,  we  shall  have  recourse  to  you.  Go  into 
the  signalling  room  and  sit  down.  In  ten 
minutes  from  now,"  he  added,  "  our  men  go 
over  the  top." 

The  signalling  room  was  the  old  winter  gar- 
den. On  the  wall,  a  large-scale  map  of  the 
trenches  showed  the  British  lines  in  black,  and 
those  of  the  enemy  in  red.  At  two  long  tables 
six  telephone  operators  were  installed.  Silent 
officers  with  red  tabs  paced  calmly  up  and 
down  the  room,  and  Aurelle  thought  of  one 
of  Major  Parker's  favourite  remarks:  **  A 
gentleman  is  never  in  a  hurry." 

As  five  o'clock  struck,  the  general  came  in 
and  the  officers  stood  still  and  said  all  together : 

"  Good  morning,  sir." 

"  Good  morning,"  said  the  general  pohtely. 

He  was  very  tall;  his  carefully  brushed  grey 
hair,  neatly  parted,  framed  his  fine  features. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      119 

Gold  lace  shone  on  the  red  facings  of  his  well- 
cut  tunic. 

Discovering  Aurelle  in  his  corner,  he  very 
kindly  gave  him  a  little  "  Good  morning  "  all 
to  himself,  and  then  he  walked  slowly,  with 
his  hands  beliind  his  back,  between  the  two 
long  tables  of  the  telephonists.  The  noise  of 
the  guns  had  suddenly  ceased,  and  nothing 
was  heard  in  the  room  but  the  authoritative 
and  measured  step  of  the  general. 

A  muffled  bell  tingled;  an  operator  quietly 

made  a  note  of  the  message  on  a  pink  form. 

"  5.5  a.m.,"  read  the  general  softly,  "  10th 

Brigade.     Attack  begun,  enemj^  barrage  not 

very  effective,  violent  machine-gun  fire." 

Then  he  passed  the  telegram  to  an  officer, 
who  stuck  it  on  a  long  pin. 

"  Transmit  it  to  the  corps,"  said  the  general. 
And  the  officer  wrote  on  a  white  paper: 
"5.10  a.m.  10th  Brigade  reports  as  follows; 
Attack  begun.     Enemy  barrage  not  very  ef- 
fective.    Violent  machine-gun  fire." 

He  filed  a  carbon  copy  on  another  pin,  and 
handed  the  original  to  an  operator,  who,  in 
his  turn,  read  it  into  the  machine. 

Inflexibly  and  monotonously  the  white  and 


I20     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

pink  messages  slowly  accmnulated.  One  bri- 
gade was  in  the  enemy's  first  line  trenches, 
the  other  had  stopped  before  a  concreted  nest 
of  machine-guns.  The  general  reinforced 
them  with  details  from  the  3rd  Brigade,  then 
rang  up  the  artillery  several  times  to  tell  them 
to  destroy  the  pill  box.  And  these  orders 
were  transcribed  on  to  the  pink  and  white 
forms.  An  officer,  standing  before  the  huge 
map,  carefully  manoeuvred  small  coloured 
flags,  and  all  this  methodical  agitation  re- 
minded Aurelle  of  a  large  banking  house  on 
the  Stock  Exchange. 

Towards  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  Staff 
officer  beckoned  to  him,  and,  leading  him  up 
to  the  map,  showed  him  the  emplacement  of  a 
French  .155  and  asked  him  to  go  and  see  the 
officer,  and  tell  him  to  destroy  at  all  costs  a 
certain  railway  cutting  in  which  one  or  two 
enemy  machine  guns  were  still  firing.  The 
telephone  was  no  longer  working. 

Outside  everything  was  calm;  it  was  rain- 
ing and  the  road  was  a  river  of  yellow  mud. 
The  noise  of  the  guns  seemed  farther  off,  but 
it  was  only  an  illusion,  because  one  could  see 
the  wicked  red  light  of  the  shells  as  they  burst 
over  the  village  in  front  of  the  house. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      121 

A  few  wounded,  in  hasty  field-dressings, 
bleeding  and  muddy,  were  coming  slowly  up 
to  the  ambulance  in  small  groups.  Aurelle 
entered  a  little  fir  wood;  the  wet  pine-needles 
seemed  delightful  walking  after  the  mud.  He 
heard  the  guns  of  the  French  battery  quite 
close,  but  could  not  find  it.  He  had  been  told : 
"  Northeast  corner  of  the  wood."  But  where 
the  devil  was  the  northeast?  All  at  once  a 
blue  uniform  moved  among  the  trees.  At  the 
same  moment  a  gun  went  off  quite  close  to 
him,  and,  turning  to  the  right,  he  saw  the  gun- 
ners on  the  edge  of  the  wood  well  hidden  by 
some  thick  bushes.  A  sergeant-major,  astride 
a  chair,  tunic  undone,  kepi  pushed  back,  was  in 
command.  The  men  served  the  gun  cleverly 
and  without  hurrying,  like  skilled  workmen. 
One  might  have  thought  it  a  peaceful,  open- 
air  factory. 

ft' 

"Sir,"  said  one  of  the  men,  "  here  is  an  in- 
terpreter." 

"  Ah,  now,  perhaps,  we  shall  find  out  why 
we  can't  get  an  answer  from  the  English," 
said  the  sergeant-major. 

Aurelle  gave  him  the  orders,  as  the  captain 
was  at  the  observation  post,  and  the  heutenant 
trying  to  repair  the  telephone. 


122     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  Right,"  said  the  sergeant-major,  a  native 
of  Lorraine  with  a  quiet,  sing-song  voice. 
"  We  will  demolish  it  for  you,  young  man." 

He  telephoned  to  the  captain;  then,  having 
found  the  cutting  on  the  map,  began  his  cal- 
culations. Aurelle  stayed  a  few  moments, 
glad  to  find  this  corner  of  the  battlefield  with 
no  false  romance,  and  also  to  hear  French 
spoken  again  at  last. 

Then  he  took  the  path  back  to  the  chateau. 
Cutting  across  a  meadow  to  find  the  high  road, 
he  approached  the  battle-field.  A  brigade  of 
reinforcements  was  going  up  in  line ;  he  passed 
it  in  a  contrary  du'ection,  with  a  few  wounded 
to  whom  he  offered  a  little  brandy.  The  men 
who  were  going  up  to  fight  looked  at  the 
wounded  in  silence. 

A  shell  whistled  above  the  colmiin ;  the  heads 
bent  like  poplars  in  a  wind.  The  shell  burst 
in  a  deserted  field.  Then  Aurelle,  having 
passed  the  brigade,  found  himself  on  the  road 
with  the  informal  procession  of  wounded  men. 
They  had  fever,  they  were  dirty,  they  were 
bloody ;  but,  thankful  to  be  out  of  it,  they  hur- 
ried at  the  best  pace  they  could  muster  towards 
the  haven  of  white  beds. 

A  company  of  German  prisoners  passed, 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      123 

guarded  by  a  few  Highlanders.  Their  ter- 
rified eyes,  like  those  of  trained  animals, 
seemed  to  be  looking  for  officers  to  salute. 

As  Aurelle  arrived  at  the  house,  he  saw  two 
men  in  front  of  him  carrying  an  officer  on  a 
stretcher.  The  officer  evidently  had  some  ter- 
rible wound,  for  his  body  was  covered  with 
dressings  through  which  the  blood  had  soaked, 
and  was  dripping  slowly  on  to  the  muddy  road. 

"  Yes,  Aurelle,  it's  I,"  said  the  dying  man 
in  a  strange  voice,  and  Aurelle  recognized 
Captain  Warburton.  His  good-looking,  merry 
face  had  become  grave.  "  O'Grady  will  not 
send  me  to  the  Duchess'  hospital  this  time, 
messiou,"  he  gasped  painfully.  "  Will  you 
say  good-bye  to  the  colonel  for  me — and  let 
him  write  heme  that  I  did  not  suffer  much. 
Hope  that  won't  bother  you.  Thanks  very 
much  indeed." 

Aurelle,  without  being  able  to  get  out  a 
word,  pressed  the  hand  of  this  maimed  boy 
who  had  been  so  fond  of  War,  and  the 
stretcher-bearers  carried  him  gently  away. 

On  arriving  at  the  chateau  he  found  every 
one  as  calm  as  ever,  but  very  serious.  He 
gave  in  a  report  of  his  mission  to  the  Staff 
officer,  who  thanked  him  absently. 


124     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

"  How  is  it  going?  "  he  asked  an  operator 
in  a  low  voice. 

"  All  right,"  growled  the  man.  "  All  ob- 
jectives attained,  but  the  general  killed. 
Would  go  himself  to  see  why  the  Second 
Brigade  did  not  come  up — a  shell  buried  him 
with  Major  Hall." 

Aurelle  thought  of  the  grey,  smooth  hair  and 
fine  features  of  the  general,  the  gold  and  scar- 
let of  his  facings  all  soiled  by  the  ignoble  mud 
of  battles.  So  much  easy  dignity,  he  thought, 
so  much  courteous  authority,  and  to-morrow 
carrion,  which  the  soldiers  will  trample  under 
foot  without  knowing.  But  ah'eady,  all  round 
him,  they  were  anxiously  discussing  who  would 
be  his  successor. 

In  the  evening,  he  went  over  to  the  Lemiox 
with  the  regiment  that  was  going  to  relieve 
them.  The  first  person  he  saw  was  the  doc- 
tor, who  was  working  in  a  dug-out. 

"  I  don't  think  the  regiment  did  badly,"  he 
said.  "  I  have  not  seen  the  colonel  yet,  but 
all  the  men  tell  me  he  was  a  marvel  of  cour- 
age and  presence  of  mind.  It  appears,  mes- 
siou,  that  we  have  the  record  number  of  Ger- 
mans killed  bv  one  man.  Private  Kemble 
bayoneted  twenty-four.     Not  bad,  is  it?  " 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      125 

**  No,"  said  Aurelle,  "  but  it's  horrible. 
Have  you  looked  at  Warburton,  doctor?  I 
met  him  on  the  road  and  he  seemed  very  bad." 

"  Done  for,"  said  the  doctor.  "  And  his 
friend  Gibbons  died  here  this  afternoon,  both 
legs  blown  off." 

"'Oh,  Gibbons  too.  Poor  Gibbons !  Do  you 
remember,  doctor,  his  talking  about  his  plump 
little  wife?  No  doubt  at  this  very  moment  she 
is  playing  tennis  with  her  sisters  in  some  lovely 
English  garden.  And  the  bleeding  limbs  of 
her  husband  are  there,  in  that  blanket.  It's 
terrible,  doctor,  all  this." 

"  Pooh ! "  answered  the  doctor,  going  to 
wash  his  hands,  which  were  covered  with  blood. 
"  In  three  months  you  will  see  her  portrait  in 
the  Tatler:  '  The  beautiful  widow  of  Captain 
Gibbons,  M.C.,  who  is  shortly  to  be  married 
to ' " 


CHAPTER  XVI 


CHANSON   DU    COMTE   DE   DORSET.      (1665) 


C 


ERTES,  just  now,  dear  ladies,  some 
Curled  juvenile,  your  deary, 
Is  but  too  apt  that  song  to  hum 
Of  which  ye  jiever  weary — 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 


The  while  he  smooths  each  glist'ning  tress. 
With  studied  grace  and  air  he, 

With  amorous  glance  and  soft  address. 
Is  seeking  to  ensnare  ye. 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Meanwhile  our  battered  vessel  rocks 

To  wild  wave-music  eerie, 
And  whistling  wind  our  sort  bemocks 

With  doleful  Miserere. 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Vainly,  to  chase  the  vision  pale 

Of  Fate  that  needs  no  query, 
We  crouch  behind  our  bulwarks  frail 

And  croon  in  chorus  dreary 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 
126 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      127 

Devoted  to  th'  infernal  shades 

By  ladies'  light  vagary, 
The  dismalest  refrain  invades 

Our  hearts  in  sad  quandary. 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

JIow  now!     Are  ye  so  slight  of  soul, 

Of  love  are  ye  so  chary, 
Already  you  forget  the  role. 

The  text  we  never  vary? 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Bethink  you  of  those  Roman  dames 

In  household  virtue  wary. 
And,  spinning  wool,  invoke  the  names 

Of  Powers  tutelary. 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Can  ye  not,  then,  be  such  as  they? 

O  hearken  to  the  prayer  he 
Intones,  your  lover  far  away, 

And  ill-content  to  share  ye ! 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

For  if  inconstant  you  should  prove, 

With  wave  and  weather  veer  ye. 
Beware  lest  this  soft  song  of  love 

Should  turn  to  Dies  Irae. 

Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  Lennox  Highlanders,  when  the  bri- 
gade was  reheved,  were  sent  for  six  days 
to  a  muddy  field  near  Dickebusch.     Dr. 
O' Grady  and  Aurelle  shared  a  tent,  and  dined 
together,  the  first  evening,  at  the  inn  of  the 
Trois  Amis. 

On  their  return,  the  stars  shone  brightly  in 
a  dark  blue  velvet  sky.  The  soft  moonlight 
lay  on  the  grass  of  the  meadows.  A  few  tents 
in  which  a  light  was  burning  resembled  great 
white  lanterns;  round  the  bivouac  fires,  blown 
about  by  the  wind,  the  men  sat  swearing  and 
singing. 

War  makes  light  of  time,"  said  the  doctor, 
it  is  eternal  and  unalterable.  This  camp 
might  be  Csesar's,  the  Tommies  round  their 
fires,  talking  of  their  wives  and  their  dangers, 
their  boots  and  their  horses,  like  the  legion- 
aries of  Fabius  or  the  veterans  of  the  Grand 
Army.  And,  as  in  those  days,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  hill,  repose  the  barbarous  Germans 
by  their  unyoked  chariots." 

128 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      129 

The  burgundy  of  the  IVois  Amis  inspired 
the  doctor  to  hold  forth  Uke  this. 

"  This  tent  is  six  thousand  vears  old,"  he 
said,  "  it  belongs  to  the  warlike  Bedouins  who 
founded  the  empires  of  Babylon  and  Carthage. 
The  restlessness  of  the  aneient  migrating  peo- 
ple inspired  them  with  a  longing  for  the  des- 
ert every  year,  and  sent  them  forth  from  the 
city  walls  on  profitable  raids.  It  is  this  same 
force,  Aurelle,  which  each  summer,  before  the 
war,  covered  the  deserted  shores  of  Europe 
with  nomadic  tents,  and  it  is  the  dim  recollec- 
tion of  ancestral  raids  which,  on  August  1, 
1914 — holiday  time,  Aurelle,  the  time  of  mi- 
grations— incited  the  youngest  of  the  barba- 
rians to  let  loose  their  Emperor  on  the  world. 
It  is  an  old  comedy  which  has  been  played  for 
two  thousand  years,  but  the  public  still  seem 
to  take  an  interest  in  it.  It  is  because  there 
is  always  a  fresh  audience." 

"  You  are  pessimistic  this  evening,"  said 
Aurelle. 

"What  do  you  call  pessimism?"  said  the 
doctor,  painfully  pulling  off  his  stiff  boots. 
*'  I  think  that  men  will  always  have  passions, 
and  that  they  will  never  cease  to  go  for  one 
another  at  regular  interv^als  with  the  most  en- 


130     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

ergetic  means  which  the  science  of  their  time 
can  procure  for  them,  and  the  best  chosen 
weapons  with  which  to  break  each  other's 
bones.  I  think  that  one  sex  will  always  try  to 
please  the  other,  and  that  from  this  elementary 
desire  will  eternally  be  born  the  need  to  van- 
quish  rivals.  With  this  object,  nightingales, 
grasshoppers,  prima  donnas  and  statesmen 
will  make  use  of  their  voices ;  peacocks,  niggers 
and  soldiers,  of  bright  colours;  rats,  deer,  tor- 
toises and  kings  will  go  on  fighting.  All  that 
is  not  pessimism,  it  is  natural  history! " 

Wliile  talking  the  doctor  had  got  into  his 
sleeping-bag,  and  had  seized  a  little  book  from 
a  shelf  made  out  of  a  biscuit  box. 

"  Listen  to  this,  Aurelle,"  said  he,  "  and 
guess  who  wrote  it. 

"  '  ]My  regrets  about  the  War  are  unceas- 
ing, and  I  shall  consent  to  admire  your  in- 
vincible general  when  I  see  the  fight  ended 
under  honourable  conditions.  It  is  true  that 
the  brilliant  successes  which  are  your  delight 
are  also  mine,  because  these  victories,  if  we 
would  use  fortune  wiselj^  will  procure  for  us 
an  advantageous  peace.  But  if  we  let  the  mo- 
ment pass  when  we  might  appear  to  give  peace 
rather  than  receive  it,  I  much  fear  that  this 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      13 ii 

splendid  achievement  will  vanish  in  smoke. 
And  if  fate  sends  us  reverses  I  tremble  to 
think  of  the  peace  which  will  be  imposed  on 
the  conquered  by  an  enemy  who  has  the  cour- 
age to  refuse  it  to  the  conquerors  ? '  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Aurelle,  yawning. 
"  Maximilian  Harden?  " 

"  Senator  Hanno  at  the  Senate  of  Carth- 
age," said  the  doctor  triumphantly.  "  And 
in  two  thousand  three  hundred  years  some 
negro  doctor,  finding  after  the  Great  African 
War  a  speech  by  Lloyd  George,  will  say, 
*  These  old  sayings  are  sometimes  very  true.' 
Yom*  formidable  European  War  is  about  as 
important,  Am'elle,  as  the  fights  between  two 
ant-heaps  in  the  corner  of  my  garden  in  Ire- 
land." 

"  It  is  much  more  than  that  to  us,"  said 
Aurelle,  "  and  it  appears  to  me  that  the  sort 
of  sentiments  it  gives  rise  to  are  not  animal. 
Do  you  think  that  ants  are  patriotic? " 

"  Most  certainly,"  replied  the  doctor,  "  the 
ants  must  be  extremely  patriotic.  AVith  them 
the  warriors  are  highly  fed  by  a  race  of  ser- 
vitors. Every  season  their  armies  set  out  to 
steal  the  eggs  of  the  weaker  species.  Work- 
ers are  hatched  from  them,  born  slaves  in  a 


132     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

foreign  country.  The  military  citizens  are 
thus  delivered  from  the  slavery  of  work  and 
these  soldiers  cannot  even  feed  themselves. 
Shut  up  with  honey,  and  without  their  nurse- 
slaves,  they  die  of  hunger.  That  is  what  is 
called  civil  mobilization.  And  if  this  war  lasts 
long  enough,  one  day,  Aurelle,  you  will  see  a 
new  human  species  appear :  soldiermen.  They 
will  be  born  with  hehnets  and  armour,  imper- 
vious to  bullets  and  provided  with  natural 
weapons;  the  Suffragettes  will  be  the  sexless 
slaves  who  will  feed  these  warriors,  while  a 
few  queens  will,  in  special  institutions,  bring 
national  infants  into  the  world." 

Thus  discoursed  the  doctor,  in  the  friendly 
silence  of  the  camp  by  the  soft  light  of  the 
moon;  and  Aurelle,  who  had  gone  to  sleep, 
saw  visions  of  enormous  ants  in  khaki  march- 
ing by,  commanded  by  the  little  doctor. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   orderlies   brought  the   rum,   sugar, 
and   boihng  water.     The   padre   began 
patience,  the  colonel  played   "  Destiny 
Waltz,"  and  Dr.  O' Grady,  who  in  times  of 
peace  was  doctor  at  an  asylum,  talked  about 
lunatics. 

"  I  had  the  care  of  a  rich  American  who 
thought  he  was  surrounded  by  a  belt  of  poi- 
soned gas,"  he  said.  "  In  order  to  save  his 
life,  he  had  a  special  bed  made  for  himself  sur- 
rounded by  a  cage  of  white  wood.  He  passed 
his  days  in  this  safe  shelter,  dressed  in  nothing 
but  a  red  bathing  suit,  writing  a  book  in 
tM^enty  thousand  chapters  on  the  life  and 
works  of  Adam.  His  room  had  a  triple  door 
on  which  he  had  cai*\'ed,  '  Gas  carriers  are 
warned  that  there  are  wolf-traps  inside.'  He 
sent  for  me  every  day,  and  when  I  went  in  he 
always  said,  '  I  have  never  seen  any  creatures 
so  stupid,  so  wicked,  so  rotten,  or  so  dense  as 
English  doctors.'  " 

183 


134     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

*'  *  I  have  never  seen/  "  repeated  the  padre 
with  great  satisfaction,  " '  any  creatures  so 
stupid,  so  wicked,  or  so  dense  as  EngUsh 
doctors.'  " 

"  Upon  which,"  continued  the  doctor,  "  he 
turned  his  back  on  me,  and,  clothed  in  his  red 
bathing  suit,  set  to  work  again  at  the  twenty- 
thousandth  chapter  on  the  works  of  Adam." 

"  Here,  messiou,"  interrupted  the  colonel, 
who  was  examining  some  official  papers,  "  is 
some  work  for  you,"  and  he  passed  over  to 
Aurelle  a  thick  bundle  of  papers  covered  with 
multi-coloured  seals. 

It  commenced  thus: 

"  From  the  Stationmaster  at  B to  the 

Mihtary  Superintendent  of  the  Station  at 
B 

"  I  hav^e  the  honour  to  inform  you  that 
Mademoiselle  Heninghem,  gate-keeper  at 
Hondezeele,  complains  of  the  following  facts : 
the  English  soldiers  camped  along  the  railway 
line  are  in  the  habit  of  performing  their  ablu- 
tions in  the  open  air,  which  is  a  shocking  sight 
for  the  lady  in  question,  who,  from  the  nature 
of  her  work,  cannot  avoid  seeing  them.  I 
shall  be  obliged  if  you  wiU.  give  orders  that  this 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      135 

regrettable  state  of  affairs  shall  be  put  a  stop 
to  as  soon  as  possible." 

(Signature.) 

(Seal.) 

"  From  the  Military  Superintendent  of  the 

Station  at  B to  the   Superintendent  at 

W 

"  Transmitted  to  the  proper  quarter." 

(Signed.) 

(Seal.) 

"  The    Superintendent    W to    the 

D.A.D.R.T. 

"  I  shall  be  obhged  if  you  will  give  orders 
that  the  camp  in  question  be  surrounded  with 
a  fence  of  sufficient  thickness  to  render  the  \ds- 
ibihty  at  fifty  yards'  distance  practically  nil." 
"  That  last  man,"  said  Aurelle,  "  is  a  poly- 
technician." 

The  padre  asked  what  that  was. 
*'  A  polytechnician  is  a  man  who  believes 
that  all  beings,  alive  or  dead,  can  be  precisely 
defined  and  submitted  to  an  algebraic  calcu- 
lation. A  polytechnician  puts,  on  the  same 
plane,  victory,  a  tempest,  and  love.  I  knew 
one  who,  commanding  a  fortress  and  having 


136     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

to  draw  up  some  orders  in  case  of  aerial  at- 
tack, began  thus :     '  The  Fortress  of  X 

will  be  attacked  by  an  aerial  engine  when  a 
vertical  line  from  the  engine  to  the  earth 
finds  the  centre  of  the  fortification,'  and  so 
on." 

"  Do  not  abuse  the  Polytechnic,  Aurelle," 
said  the  doctor.  "  It  is  the  most  original  of 
your  institutions  and  the  best.  The  personal 
cult  of  Napoleon  is  so  well  preserved  that  each 
year  France  presents  two  hundred  Lieutenant 
Bonapartes  to  the  astonished  Government.'* 

"  Go  on  translating,  messiou,"  said  the 
colonel. 

"  D.A.D.R.T.  to  the  Superintendent. 
*'  This  does  not  concern  me  but  a  division 
that  is  resting.     You  must  address  your  claim 
to  the  A.G.  by  the  intermediary  of  the  French 
Mission." 

(Signed.) 

;(SeaI.) 

"  Superintendent  to  the  Base  Com- 
mandant G.H.Q. 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  forward  herewith, 
for    any    action    you    consider    necessary,    a 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      137 

Memorandum  concerning  a  complaint  from 
Mademoiselle  Heninghem  of  Hondezeele." 

(Signed.) 

(Seal.) 

And  so  it  went  on:  Base  Commandant  to 
the  French  Mission;  French  Mission  to  the 
Adjutant- General;  A.  G.  to  the  Army;  Army 
to  the  Corps ;  Division  to  the  Brigade ;  Brigade 
to  the  Colonel  of  the  Lennox  Highlanders. 
And  it  was  signed  with  illustrious  names. 
Colonel,  Chief  Staff  Officer  for  the  General, 
Brigadier,  Major-General;  thus  the  modest 
scruples  of  Mademoiselle  Heninghem  of  Hon- 
dezeele were  clothed,  in  the  course  of  a  long 
journey,  with  purple,  gold  and  glory. 

"This  is  a  tiresome  business,"  said  Colonel 
Bramble  solemnly.  "  Parker,  answer  it,  will 
you,  like  a  good  chap." 

The  major  wrote  for  several  minutes,  then 
read  out: 

"  This  regiment  liaving  left  the  Camp  at 
Hondezeele  two  months  and  a  half  ago,  it  is 
unfortunately  impossible  to  take  the  measui'es 
desired  in  the  matter.  Moreover,  having  as- 
certained the  great  cost  of  a  fence  of  sufficient 
height,  I  beg  to  suggest  that  it  would  be  more 


138     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

> 

advantageous  to  the  allied  Governments  to  re- 
place the  gate-keeper  at  Hondezeele  by  a  per- 
son of  mature  age  and  proved  experience,  to 
whom  the  spectacle  described  here^vith  would 
be  inoffensive  and  even  agreeable." 

"  No,  Parker,  no,"  said  the  colonel  fii'mly, 
"  I  shall  not  sign  that.  Give  me  a  piece  of 
paper.     I  will  answer  myself." 

He  wrote  simply : 

"  Noted  and  returned. 

"  Bramble, 
"  Colonel." 

"  You  are  a  wise  man,  sir,"  said  Parker. 

"  I  know  the  game,"  said  the  colonel.  "  I 
have  played  it  for  thirty  j'^ears." 

"  Once  upon  a  time,"  said  the  doctor,  "  there 
were  two  officers  who,  on  the  same  day,  each 
lost  something  belonging  to  His  Majesty's 
Government.  The  first  one  mislaid  a  coal- 
bucket;  the  second  a  motor-lorry.  Now  you 
must  know,  Aurelle,  that  in  our  army  an  of- 
ficer has  to  pay  for  anything  which  he  may 
lose  by  negligence  out  of  his  own  pocket.  The 
two  officers,  therefore,  received  notices  from 
the  War  Office  advising  one  that  he  would  have 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      139 

to  pay  three  shilhngs,  and  the  other  that  a 
thousand  pounds  would  be  stopped  from  his 
pay.  The  first  one  wished  to  defend  himself ; 
he  had  never  had  any  coal-buckets,  and  tried 
to  prove  it.  He  stopped  his  promotion,  and 
in  the  end  had  to  pay  the  three  bob.  The  sec- 
ond, who  knew  a  thing  or  two,  just  wrote  at 
the  bottom  of  the  paper,  '  Noted  and  re- 
turned,' and  sent  it  back  to  the  War  Office. 
There,  following  an  old  and  wise  rule,  a  clerk 
lost  the  correspondence  and  the  officer  never 
heard  anvthinof  more  of  that  little  matter." 

"  That  isn't  a  bad  story,  doctor,"  said  Major 
Parker;  "  but  in  the  case  of  the  loss  of  prop- 
erty belonging  to  the  Government  there  is  a 
much  better  method  than  yours  —  Colonel 
Boulton's  method. 

"  Colonel  Boulton  commanded  an  ammuni- 
tion depot.  He  was  responsible,  among  other 
things,  for  fifty  machine-guns.  One  day  he 
noticed  that  there  were  only  forty-nine  in  the 
depot.  All  the  inquiries,  and  punishment  of 
the  sentries,  failed  to  restore  the  missing 
machine-gun. 

"  Colonel  Boulton  was  an  old  fox  and  had 
never  acknowledged  himself  in  the  wrong. 
He  simply  mentioned  in  his  monthly  return 


140     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

that  the  trijiod  of  a  machine-gun  had  been 
broken.  They  sent  him  a  tripod  to  replace 
the  other  without  any  comment. 

"  A  month  later,  on  some  pretext  or  other, 
he  reported  the  sighting  apparatus  of  a  ma- 
chine-gun as  out  of  order ;  the  following  month 
he  asked  for  three  screw-nuts;  then  a  recoil 
plate,  and  bit  by  bit  in  two  years  he  entirely 
destroyed  his  machine-gun.  And  correspond- 
ingly, bit  by  bit,  the  Armj^  Ordnance  Depart- 
ment reconstructed  it  for  him  without  attach- 
ing any  importance  to  the  requisitions  for  the 
separate  pieces. 

"  Then  Colonel  Boulton,  satisfied  at  last,  in- 
spected his  machine-guns,  and  found  fifty-one. 

"  While  he  had  been  patiently  reconstruct- 
ing the  lost  gun,  some  damned  idiot  had  found 
it  in  a  corner.  And  Boulton  had  to  spend  two 
years  of  clever  manipulation  of  his  books  to 
account  for  the  new  gun  which  had  been 
evolved  out  of  nothing." 

"  Messiou,"  said  the  colonel,  "  do  you  re- 
member the  gate-keeper  at  Hondezeele?  I 
should  not  have  thought  it  of  her." 

"  No  more  should  I,"  said  Aurelle.  "  She 
was  very  pretty." 

"  Messioul  "  said  the  padre. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

DOCTOR,"  said  the  padre,  "give  me 
a  cigar." 

"Are  you  aware,  padre,  that  my 
cigars  were  rolled  on  the  bare  thighs  of  the 
young  girls  of  Havana?" 

"  O'Grady,"  said  the  colonel  severely,  "  I 
consider  that  remark  out  of  place." 

"  Give  me  one  all  the  same,"  said  the  padre. 
"  I  must  smoke  a  cigar  to  help  me  find  a  text 
for  my  sermon.  The  quartermaster  made  me 
promise  to  go  and  see  the  motor-drivers  wlio 
are  at  the  back,  and  I  don't  know  what  to  talk 
to  them  about." 

"  Look  here,  padre,  I  will  give  j^ou  an  ap- 
propi-iate  text;  lend  me  your  Bible  a  moment. 
Ah,  here  it  is.  Listen!  'But  David  said, 
Ye  shall  not  do  so,  my  brethren,  with  that 
which  tlie  Lord  hath  given  us  .  .  .  but  as  his 
part  is  that  goeth  down  to  the  battle,  so  shall 
his  part  be  that  tarrieth  by  the  stuff;  they  shall 
part  alike.'  " 

141 


142     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 


(( 


Admirable,"  said  the  padre,  "admirable! 
But  tell  me,  O 'Grady,  how  is  it  that  an  old 
simier  like  you  knows  the  Holy  Scriptures  so 
well?" 

"  I  studied  the  Book  of  Samuel  a  good  deal 
from  an  asylum  doctor's  point  of  view,"  said 
the  doctor.  "  Saul's  neurasthenia  interested 
me.  His  attacks  are  very  well  described.  I 
have  also  diagnosed  the  madness  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. They  were  two  very  different  types. 
Saul  was  apathetic  and  Nebuchadnezzar  vio- 
lent." 

"  I  wish  you  would  leave  Nebuchadnezzar 
alone,"  said  the  colonel. 

"  I  am  very  much  afraid  of  asylum  doc- 
tors,"   said    Major    Parker.     "  Violent,    de- 
pressed, or  apathetic,  we  are  all  mad,  accord- 
ing to  them." 

"  What  do  you  call  mad? "  said  the  doctor. 
"  I  certainly  can  see  in  you,  and  in  the  colonel, 
and  Aurelle,  all  the  phenomena  which  I  ob- 
served in  the  asylum." 

"  Ugh !  "  said  the  colonel,  horrified. 

"  But  I  do,  sir.  Between  Aurelle,  who  for- 
gets the  war  by  reading  Tolstoi,  and  some  of 
my  old  friends  who  thought  they  were  Napo- 
leon or  Mahomet,  there  is  a  difference  in  de- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      143 

gree  but  not  in  nature.  Aurelle  browses  on 
novels  from  a  morbid  desire  to  live  the  life  of 
some  one  else ;  my  patients  substitute  for  their 
miserable  life  that  of  some  great  personage 
whose  history  they  have  read  and  whose  lot 
they  en-^y. 

"  Oh,  I  know  your  objections,  Aurelle. 
You  know,  all  the  time  you  are  dreaming  of 
the  loves  of  Prince  Bolkonsky,  that  you  are 
the  Interpreter  Aurelle,  attached  to  the  Len- 
nox Highlanders,  but  when  Queen  Elizabeth 
is  scrubbing  the  floor  in  my  office,  she  does  not 
know  that  she  is  Mrs.  Jones,  charwoman,  of 
Hammersmith.  But  incoherence  is  not  the 
monopoly  of  madness :  all  the  main  ideas  of  a 
sane  man  are  irrational  erections  built  up,  for 
better  or  worse,  to  express  his  deepest  feel- 
ings." 

"  Parker,"  said  the  colonel,  "  can  you  think 
of  anji;hing  to  stop  him?  " 

"  A  No.'  5  grenade,  sir,"  said  the  major. 

But  the  doctor  went  on  imperturbably : 

"  One  of  my  patients  was  a  countiy  gentle- 
man, who  after  being  a  model  of  piety  for  the 
first  part  of  his  life  suddenly  became  an  athe- 
ist. He  gave  carefully  thouglit-out  reasons 
for  it,  and  discoursed  with  a  good  deal  of  eru- 


144     '^h^  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

dition  on  questions  of  doctrine,  but  the  only 
true  cause  of  his  conversion  to  the  wrong  side 
was  because  his  wife  ran  away  with  the  clergy- 
man of  his  village.  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon, 
padre,  j^ou  don't  mind,  do  you?  " 

"  I  ?  I  have  not  been  listening  to  you  for 
ages,"  said  the  padre,  who  was  dealing  out 
patience. 

"  It  is  just  the  same  thing,"  continued  the 
doctor,  turning  to  the  docile  Aurelle,  "  with 
a  man  who  is  too  refined  for  the  class  in  which 
chance  has  placed  him.  At  first  he  is  simply 
jealous  and  unhappy.  Influenced  by  these 
feelings,  he  becomes  violently  critical  of  society 
in  order  to  accoimt  for  his  hate  and  disap- 
pointment. 

"  Nietzsche  was  a  genius  because  he  de- 
lighted in  persecution.  Karl  Marx  was  a  dan- 
gerous maniac.  It  is  onlj^  when  the  feelings 
of  discontent  which  he  tries  to  explain  coincide 
with  those  of  a  whole  class,  or  a  whole  nation, 
that  the  impassioned  theorist  becomes  a 
prophet,  or  a  hero;  while,  if  he  confines  him- 
self to  explaining  that  he  would  rather  have 
been  born  an  Emperor,  they  shut  him  up." 

"  Moral,"  said  the  major,  "  shut  up  all  the- 
orists." 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      145 


(C 


And  the  doctor,"  said  the  colonel. 
No,  not  all,"  said  the  doctor.  "  We  treat 
the  subject  just  as  the  ancients  did.  All  prim- 
itive people  thought  that  a  lunatic  was  pos- 
sessed by  a  spirit.  When  his  incoherent  words 
more  or  less  accord  with  the  moral  prejudices 
of  the  time,  the  spirit  is  a  good  one,  and  the 
man  is  a  saint.  In  the  opposite  case,  the  spirit 
is  evil  and  the  man  must  be  suppressed.  It 
is  just  according  to  the  time  and  place  and 
the  doctors,  whether  a  prophetess  would  be 
worshipped  as  a  priestess  or  ducked  as  a  witch. 
Innumerable  violent  lunatics  have  escaped  the 
cells,  thanks  to  the  War,  and  their  very  vio- 
lence has  made  heroes  of  them.  And  in  every 
Parliament  there  are  at  least  five  or  six  undis- 
puted idiots  who  got  elected  for  their  mad- 
ness, through  the  admiration  of  their  constit- 
uents." 

"  Say  fiv^e  or  six  hundred,"  said  Major  Par- 
ker, "  and  it  will  be  the  first  sensible  thing  you 
have  said  to-night." 

"  That's  because  my  madness  agrees  with 
yours  on  that  subject,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  Doctor,"  said  the  colonel,  "  you  under- 
stand treatment  by  suggestion,  don't  you?  I 
wish  you  would  calm  down  your  hospital  ser- 


146     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

geant  a  bit.  He  is  so  nervous  that  he  begins 
to  tremble  and  becomes  perfectly  speechless  if 
I  speak  to  him.  I  really  beheve  I  terrify  him. 
See  what  you  can  do,  like  a  good  fellow." 

Next  morning,  Dr.  O'Grady  sent  for  Ser- 
geant Freshwater  to  his  tent  and  talked  kindly 
to  him. 

Freshwater,  a  lean  Albino  with  heaiy,  stu- 
pid eyes,  owned  that  he  lost  his  head  whenever 
the  colonel  came  near  him. 

"  Well,  my  friend,"  said  the  doctor,  "  we 
will  cure  you  of  that  in  five  minutes.  Sit 
down  there." 

He  made  some  passes  to  create  an  atmos- 
phere favourable  to  suggestion,  then  began: 

"  You  are  not  afraid  of  the  colonel,  you 
know  he  is  a  man  just  like  you  and  me — ^you 
rather  like  talking  to  him.  Look  closely  at 
his  face  when  he  speaks  to  you.  His  mous- 
tache is  always  cut  a  little  too  short  on  the  left 
side." 

The  doctor  went  on  like  this  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  describing  the  rugged  features  and 
funny  ways  of  the  colonel,  then  sent  away  the 
sergeant,  telling  him  that  he  was  cured,  and 
not  to  forget  it  the  first  time  he  met  his  com- 
manding officer. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      147 

A  few  hours  later.  Colonel  Bramble,  going 
out  for  his  lunch,  met  the  hospital  sergeant  on 
one  of  the  duck-boards  used  for  going  through 
the  camp.  Freshwater  stepped  on  one  side, 
saluted,  and  began  to  laugh  silently. 

" 'W'Tiatever  is  the  matter,  sergeant?"  said 
the  astonished  colonel. 

"  Oh,  sir,"  replied  Freshwater  in  fits  of 
laughter,  "  I  cannot  help  laughing  when  I  look 
at  you,  you  have  such  a  funny  face! " 

The  colonel,  in  a  few  well-chosen  words,  de- 
stroyed the  doctor's  learned  suggestions  for 
ever;  then,  establishing  himself  in  front  of  the 
tinned  lobster,  he  complimented  O'Grady  on 
his  miraculous  cure. 

"  I  have  never  seen,"  said  the  padre,  "  any 
creatures  so  stupid,  so  wicked,  so  rotten,  or  so 
dense  as  English  doctors." 

"  Medicine  is  a  very  old  joke,"  said  Major 
Parker,  "  but  it  still  goes  on.  Now,  doctor, 
tell  the  truth  for  once :  what  do  you  know  more 
than  we  do  about  illnesses  and  their  reme- 
dies?" 

"  That's  right,"  said  the  padre,  "  attack  his 
religion;  he  often  attacks  mine." 

"  When  I  was  in  India,"  said  the  colonel, 
"  an  old  army  doctor  gave  me  for  every  mal- 


148     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

ady  the  remedy  which  just  suited  me.  For 
palpitations  of  the  heart,  a  large  glass  of 
brandy;  for  insomnia,  three  of  four  glasses  of 
port  after  dinner;  for  stomachic  disorders,  a 
bottle  of  dry  champagne  at  each  meal.  And, 
as  long  as  one  was  feeling  well,  whisky  and 
soda." 

"  Excellent,  sir,"  said  Aurelle.  "  Before 
the  War  I  drank  nothing  but  water  and  I  was 
always  ill;  since  I  have  been  with  you  I  have 
adopted  whisky  and  I  feel  much  better." 

"  Yes,  you  look  it,"  said  the  colonel.  '*  I 
had  a  friend,  Major  Fetherstonhaugh,  who 
began  to  have  fits  of  dizziness  when  he  was 
about  forty;  he  went  to  see  a  doctor  who 
thought  it  was  the  whisky  and  advised  him  to 
drink  milk  for  a  time;  well,  in  ten  days  he 
was  dead." 

And  a  good  thing  too,"  said  the  padre. 
But  I  expect — "  began  the  doctor. 
Happy  are  those  who  expect  nothing," 
said  the  padre,  "  for  they  shall  not  be  dis- 
appointed." 

"What,  you  too,  padre!"  said  the  doctor. 
"  Take  care;  if  you  ruin  doctors  by  your  ma- 
levolent remarks,  I  shall  found  a  society  for 


(( 


« 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      149 

the  exportation  to  the  Colonies  of  mechanical 
idols  and  ovens  for  cooking  missionaries." 

"  That  is  an  excellent  idea,"  said  the  padre. 
"  I  must  see  about  it." 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  brigade,  kept  in  reserve  for  the  divi- 
sion, was  ordered  to  go  and  camp  at 
H .  As  a  dentist  measures  the  ex- 
tent of  a  cavity  at  a  glance,  the  men  of  the 
Lennox,  expert  in  bombardments,  cast  a  pro- 
fessional eye  over  the  village.  Round  the 
chateau  and  the  church  it  was  done  for:  houses 
in  ruins,  pavements  torn  up,  trees  smashed. 
The  weaving  factory  had  been  badly  damaged. 
The  rest  was  not  so  unhealthy,  a  little  knocked 
about,  perhaps,  but  habitable. 

The  house  where  Colonel  Bramble  had 
established  his  Mess  had  ah'cady  been  hit  by 
a  shell.  It  had  burst  in  the  garden,  breaking 
the  window-panes  and  marking  the  walls. 
Madame,  a  dear  little  old  lady,  made  light 
of  these  blemishes,  which  had  depreciated  her 
house  in  value. 

"  Oh,  just  a  shell,  monsieur  Vofficier! "  she 
said.  *'  Quite  a  small  shell;  I  put  the  base  of 
it  there  on  my  mantelpiece.     It's  nothing,  as 

150 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      151 

you   can   see.     True,   they   make    a   mess   of 
everything,  but  I  am  not  afraid  of  them!  " 

The  colonel  asked  her  how  many  windows 
had  been  broken. 

"  I  don't  like  this  house,"  said  the  padre, 
as  they  sat  do^vn  to  dinner. 

"  The  life  of  a  soldier,"  replied  the  colonel, 
*'  is  one  of  great  hardship,  not  infrequently 
mingled  with  moments  of  real  danger." 

"  Be  not  dismayed,  padre,"  said  the  doctor. 
"Shells  fall  like  drops  of  water:  if  it  rains 
much  the  whole  pavement  gets  wet." 

*'  The  Lennox  Mess  has  always  been  lucky," 
said  Major  Parker. 

"  Luck  is  nothing,"  said  the  doctor. 

*'  One  can  see  you  are  not  a  gambler,"  re- 
marked Aurelle. 

"  One  can  see  that  you  are  not  a  mathema- 
tician," said  the  doctor. 

The  padre  expostulated: 

"^\Tiat?  Luck  nothing?  How  about  lit- 
tle Taylor,  killed  by  a  shell  in  Poperinghe  Sta- 
tion at  the  very  moment  that  he  was  arri\ang 
at  the  front  for  the  first  time!  You  don't 
call  that  bad  luck?" 

"  Not  more  than  if  an  old  habitue  like  me 
was  wiped  out  by  a  whizz-bang,  padre.     You 


1^2     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

are  astonished  at  Taylor  being  killed  the  first 
minute,  just  as  you  would  be  surprised  if,  in 
a  lottery  of  a  million  tickets,  Number  One 
should  win,  although  that  number  had  ob- 
viously as  much  chance  as,  say,  327,645.  Some 
one  must  be  the  last  man  killed  in  this  war, 
but  you  will  see  that  his  family  will  not  think 
it  ordinary." 

"  You  are  a  fanatic,  O'Grady,"  said  Parker, 
"  you  must  have  an  explanation  for  every- 
thing; there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  are  dreamed  of  in  your  philosophy. 
I  believe,  myself,  in  good  luck  and  bad  luck 
because  I  have  noticed  it:  I  believe  in  pre- 
sentiments because  I  have  had  them,  and 
events  have  confirmed  them.  When  I  was 
being  sent  home,  after  the  Transvaal  War,  I 
got  an  order  to  embark  on  a  certain  ship. 
Well,  two  daj^s  before  it  started  I  suddenly 
had  a  presentiment  that  I  must  avoid  sailing 
in  that  ship  at  all  costs.  I  went  sick  and 
waited  a  fortnight  longer.  The  transport  I 
missed  was  completely  lost  and  no  one  ever 
knew  how.  Then  again,  why  are  you  so  cer- 
tain, doctor,  that  aspirin  will  cure  your  head- 
ache? Because  aspirin  has  cured  it  before. 
Where's  the  difference?" 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      153 


« 


The  major  is  right,"  said  Am-elle.  "  To 
say  that  you  do  not  believe  in  a  man's  bad 
luck  because  you  cannot  find  it  at  his  autopsy, 
is  like  saying  that  the  tuner  has  taken  the 
piano  to  pieces,  and  therefore  Mozart  had  no 
soul." 

The  quartermaster,  who  was  dining  with 
them  that  evening,  threw  his  weight  into  dis- 
cussion : 

"  There  are  things  that  cannot  be  explained, 
doctor.  For  instance,  I  hit  you  in  the  face: 
you  shut  your  eye — why?  " 

There  was  an  astounded  silence. 

"  Another  instance,"  remarked  the  padre  at 
last.  "  AVhy  is  it  that  if  there  is  a  pause  in 
the  conversation,  it  is  always  twenty  minutes 
to,  or  twenty  minutes  past,  the  hour? " 

"  But  that's  not  true,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  It  was  true  this  time,  anyhow,"  said 
Aurelle,  looking  at  his  watch. 

"  It  may  be  once  or  twice,"  said  the  doctor 
irritably,  "  but  it  cannot  always  happen." 

"  All  right,  doctor,  all  right,"  said  the  padre. 
"  You  notice  it  for  several  days  and  I  think 
you  will  change  your  mind." 

The  colonel  said: 

''  My  men  tell  me  that  if  a  shell  falls  on  a 


<c 


154     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

dug-out  where  there  are  gunners  and  infantry, 
the  latter  are  killed  and  the  gunners  are 
spared.     Why?" 

"  But  it  is  not  true,  sir." 

"  And  why  must  one  never  light  three  ciga- 
rettes with  the  same  match?  " 

"  But  you  may,  sir,  it  does  not  matter  a  bit." 

"  Ah,  there  I  disagree  with  you,  doctor," 
said  the  colonel.  "  I  am  not  superstitious,  but 
I  would  not  do  that  f(5r  anything  in  the  world." 

"  Why  do  people  dressed  in  green  always 
lose  at  Monte  Carlo  ?  "  said  Aurelle. 

"  But  it  is  not  true!  "  roared  the  doctor,  ex- 
asperated. 

"  It  is  easy  to  argue  like  you,"  said  Parker. 
"  Everything  you  do  not  agree  with  is  not 
true." 

"  There  are,"  said  the  padre,  "  no  creatures 
so  wicked  and  so  dense  as  English  doctors." 

"  Messiou,"  said  the  colonel,  "  are  the  gun- 
ners equally  lucky  in  the  French  Army? " 

"  I  have  often  remarked  it,"  said  Aurelle, 
who  liked  Colonel  Bramble  very  much. 

The  colonel  therefore  triumphed,  and  tried 
to  put  an  end  to  the  discussion,  which  bored 
him. 

I  am  SD  very  sorry,"  he  saixi,  "  I  cannot 


u 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      155 

give  you  the  gramophone  to-night.     I  have  no 
more  needles," 

"  That  is  a  pity,'*  said  the  padre. 

The  window-panes  shook;  a  big  gun  went 
off  close  to  the  house.  Aurelle  went  to  the 
window  and  saw  behind  a  farm,  silhouetted  in 
black  against  the  orange  twilight  of  the  sky, 
a  yellowish  smoke,  slowly  dispersing. 

"  There's  the  old  man  beginning  to  strafe 
again,"  said  the  padre.  "  I  don't  hke  this 
house." 

"  You  will  have  to  put  up  with  it,  padre ;  the 
Staff  captain  won't  give  us  another;  he's  a 
boy  who  knows  his  own  mind." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  colonel,  "  he  is  a  very  nice 
boy  too;  he  is  one  of  Lord  Bamford's  sons." 

"  His  father,  the  old  Lord,  was  a  fine  rider," 
said  Parker. 

"  His  sister,"  rephed  the  colonel,  "  married 
a  cousin  of  Graham,  who  was  a  major  in  our 
first  battalion  at  the  beginning  of  the  War, 
and  is  now  a  brigadier-general." 

Aurelle,  foreseeing  that  such  an  interesting 
subject,  so  rich  in  the  possibility  of  unexi)ected 
developments,  would  occupy  the  entire  eve- 
ning, tried  to  scribble  some  verses,  still  medi- 
tating on  luck  and  chance. 


156     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Pascal,  thou  said'st  if  Cleopatra's  nose 

Had  shorter  been,  we  were  not — where  we  are  .  .  . 

A  new  and  formidable  detonation  put  a 
subtle  rhyme  out  of  his  head;  discouraged,  he 
tried  another: 

I  trust  you  will  not  look  askance 

For  once  I  deal  in  platitude; 
To-night,  to  laws  of  luck  and  chance 

The  Mess  defines  its  attitude. 

Another  shell  fell  so  close  that  the  colonel 
got  up  suddenly. 

"  They  are  beginning  to  bombard  the  cha- 
teau again,"  he  said.  "  I  am  going  to  see 
where  that  one  fell." 

Major  Parker  and  the  doctor  followed  him 
into  the  street,  but  Aurelle,  who  was  again 
rhyming,  stayed  with  the  padre,  who  had  just 
begun  the  same  patience  for  the  fourteenth 
time  that  evening.  The  three  officers  had  gone 
about  a  hundred  yards  when  another  explosion 
took  place  behind  them. 

"  That  one  was  not  far  from  the  Mess,"  said 
the  doctor.  "  I  am  going  to  tell  Madame  to 
go  down  into  the  cellar." 

He  retraced  his  steps  and  found  a  new  shell- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      157 

hole  in  front  of  the  house.  The  house  seemed 
all  right;  through  the  broken  M^ndow  the  doc- 
tor saw  the  padre  and  called  out  to  him: 

"  A  near  thing  that  time,  padre.  Are  you 
all  right  ?     ^^^lere  is  Aurelle  ?  " 

But  the  padre  did  not  move:  with  his  head 
leaning  on  his  arms  crossed  over  the  scattered 
cards,  he  appeared  to  be  gazing  vaguely  at  the 
doctor,  who  entered  at  a  bound  and  touched 
the  padre  on  the  shoulder. 

He  was  dead.  A  piece  of  shell  had  entered 
his  temple,  which  was  bleeding  slowly.  Au- 
relle had  fallen  on  the  floor.  He  was  uncon- 
scious and  covered  with  blood,  but  the  doctor, 
bending  over  him,  found  that  he  still  breathed. 
As  he  was  unfastening  his  tunic  and  shirt,  the 
colonel  and  Parker  arrived  with  their  meas- 
ured tread  and  stopped  abruptly  at  the  door. 

"  The  padre  has  been  killed,  sir,"  said  the 
doctor  simply.  "  Aurelle  is  hit,  too,  but  I 
don't  think  it  is  serious.  No,  it's  his  shoulder 
— nothing  much." 

The  colonel  groaned  sympathetically. 

Parker  helped  O'Grady  to  lay  the  French- 
man on  a  table;  a  crumpled  piece  of  paper  at- 
tracted the  colonel's  attention ;  he  picked  it  up 
and  read  with  difficulty: 


158     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

Why  must  you  ever  close  my  eyes 
Before  you  kiss  my  lips? 


"  What  is  it  all  about?  "  he  said. 

"  It  belongs  to  Aurelle,"  said  the  doctor. 

The  colonel  carefully  folded  the  httle  sheet 
of  paper  and  slid  it  respectfully  into  the  young 
Frenchman's  pocket.  Then,  after  the  doctor 
had  finished  dressing  the  wound  and  had  sent 
for  an  ambulance,  they  laid  the  padre  on 
Madame's  humble  bed.  Thev  all  took  their 
hats  off  and  stood  silent  for  some  time  con- 
templating the  strangely  softened  features  of 
the  childlike  old  man. 

The  doctor  looked  at  his  watch;  it  was 
twenty  minutes  past  nine. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AURELLE,  on  leaving  hospital,  was  at- 
tached, while  convalescent,  to  the  Eng- 
lish colonel,  Musgrave,  who  commanded 
a  supply  depot  at  Estrees,  a  little  village  well 
hehind  the  line.  He  missed  the  evenings  with 
the  Lennox  Mess,  but  buying  fodder  and  wood 
took  him  some  way  out  into  the  pretty  undu- 
lating country  with  its  clear  streams,  and  he 
loved  Estrees,  hiding  its  innumerable  belfries 
among  the  flowery  hills. 

It  was  a  very  antique  city,  and  in  its  youth, 
in  the  time  of  the  seigneurs  of  Estrees,  had 
played  an  important  part  in  the  affairs  of 
France.  For  several  hundred  years  she  had 
defended  her  ramparts  against  the  troops  of 
the  Kings  of  England,  and  from  her  walls  she 
could  see  those  same  soldiers  to-day  camped 
about  her,  this  time  as  familiar  and  courteous 
guests.  Her  tenacious  burghers  had  repulsed 
both  Eeaguers  and  Spaniards  with  equal  suc- 
cess.    She  now  slept  in  smiling  old  age,  hav- 

159 


i6o     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

ing  seen  too  many  things  to  be  surprised  any 
more,  while  still  retaining  from  the  times  of 
her  glory  her  casket  of  beautiful  mansions, 
built  among  courts  and  gardens  with  the  noble 
simplicity  of  line  dating  from  the  best  periods. 

Colonel  Musgrave  and  his  officers  inhabited 
the  large  and  handsome  house  of  the  Dutch 
merchant,  Van  Mopez,  whom  Colbert  had 
established  at  Estrees  to  introduce  the  art  of 
weaving  and  dyeing  cloth.  Aurelle  liked  to 
go  and  sit  in  the  garden  and  read  a  History 
of  Estrees  written  bj^  Monsieur  Jean  Valines, 
correspondence  member  of  the  Amiens  Acad- 
emy, and  author  of  "  Nouvelles  observations 
sur  les  miracles  de  la  chapelle  d'Estrees." 

This  excellent  work  contained  accounts  of 
the  great  rejoicings  and  high  festivals  with 
which  Estrees  the  Faithful  had  received  the 
Kings,  when  they  came  to  kneel  and  worship 
at  the  feet  of  the  miraculous  image  in  the 
Chapel  of  St.  Ferreol. 

The  municipal  worthies,  between  the  royal 
visits,  prudently  and  carefully  preserved  the 
white  and  blue  draperies  embroidered  with 
fleurs-de-lis,  and  the  decorations  of  painted 
scenery. 

The  Revolution  had  rather  upset  these  do- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      i6i 

mestic  arrangements;  the  flem-s-de-Hs  had  to 
be  removed  and  a  red  fringe  sewn  along  the 
blue  and  white  draperies,  so  that  the  square 
of  Saint-Ferreol  could  be  decorated  at  a  small 
cost  for  the  fete  of  the  Supreme  Being. 
Aurelle  loved  the  description: 

"  The  cortege,  preceded  by  music  and 
drums,  consisted  first  of  a  half-company  of  the 
National  Guard  carrying  a  banner  on  which 
was  inscribed :  '  Up  with  the  People,  down 
with  Tyrants.' 

"  Then  came  the  mothers  of  families  carry- 
ing their  infants  in  their  arms ;  children  of  both 
sexes  clothed  in  the  most  beautiful  ornaments 
of  their  age — innocence  and  candour;  young 
girls  adorned  with  their  charms  and  virtues; 
and  the  members  of  that  Society  so  dreaded 
by  traitors,  in  which  were  united  the  defenders 
of  the  truth,  the  upholders  of  public  opinion, 
and  the  indefatigable  guardians  of  the  people. 

"  The  whole  cortege  gathered  at  the  foot  of 
a  mound  erected  in  the  square  of  Saint- 
Ferreol.  There,  the  people  of  Estrees  swore 
fidelity  to  the  laws  of  nature  and  humanity, 
and  subsequently  a  group  of  figures  represent- 
ing Despotism  and  Imposture  were  consumed 
by  flames ;  Wisdom  arose  out  of  the  ashes  and 


i62     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

on  his  shield  was  written :  '  I  guard  the 
Republic.' " 

Aurelle  turned  over  some  pages,  very  few, 
for,  as  Monsieur  Jean  Valines  said,  the  happy 
sterility  of  the  archives  of  Estrees  during  the 
Revolution  recorded  no  other  facts  worthy  of 
notice  than  two  fetes,  a  fire,  and  a  flood. 
Next  came  the  visit  of  the  First  Consul.  He 
came  to  Estrees  accompanied  by  his  wife  and 
several  general  officers,  and  was  received  by 
the  authorities  under  a  triumphal  arch,  erected 
at  the  Saint-Ferreoi  Gate,  adorned  with  this 
inscription :  "  The  Grateful  Inhabitants  of 
this  City  swear  Allegiance  and  Fidelity  to  the 
Conqueror  of  Marengo." 

The  Mayor  presented  the  keys  of  the  town 
on  a  silver  dish  covered  with  bay  leaves.  "  I 
take  them,  citoyen  maire,  and  I  return  them 
to  you,"  replied  Bonaparte. 

"  The  National  Guard  lined  the  route  and 
cries  of  '  Long  live  Bonaparte!  Long  live  the 
First  Consul ! '  were  repeated  enthusiastically 
a  thousand  times.  The  First  Consul  visited 
the  Van  Mopez  factory  and  distributed  a  day's 
pay  among  the  workmen.  The  day  ended 
with  illuminations  and  a  brilliant  ball. 

"  A    short    time    after    his    marriage    with 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      163 

Marie-Louise,  Napoleon  came  back,  accom- 
panied by  the  Empress.  The  square  of  Saint- 
Ferreol  was  a  magnificent  spectacle,  decorated 
with  red  and  white  draperies  and  garlands  of 
green  leaves.  A  triumphal  arch  had  been 
erected  with  the  inscription :  '  Augusto  Napo- 
leoni  Augustoeque  Marine  Ludovicae  Strata- 
ville  semper  fidelis/  " 

A  few  more  pages  further  on  and  it  was 
March,  1814;  for  six  days  no  couriers  got 
through  to  Estrees  from  Paris,  and  then  she 
heard  of  the  fall  of  the  Emperor. 

"  At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  mag- 
istrates, assembled  in  the  Town  Hall,  sum- 
moned the  inhabitants  with  the  ringing  of 
bells.  The  Mayor  appeared  on  the  balcony 
of  the  large  hall  and  proclaimed  the  allegiance 
of  the  town  to  the  restored  Bourbons.  The 
spectators  received  this  speech  with  oft- 
repeated  cries  of  '  Long  live  the  King! ' '  Long 
live  Louis  XVIII ! '  and  all  put  on  the  white 
cockade. 

"  The  news  soon  came  that  Louis  XVIII 
had  landed  at  Calais  and  that  he  would  pass 
through  Estrees.  A  guard  of  honour  was 
formed  and  a  triumphal  arch  was  erected  at 
the  Saint-Ferreol  gate.     It  bore  this  inscrip- 


164     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

tion:  *  Regibus  usque  suis  urhs  Stratavilla 
fidelis/ 

"  The  clergy  from  every  parish  approached 
to  compliment  the  King,  and  the  Mayor  pre- 
sented the  keys  of  the  town  on  a  silver  dish 
adorned  with  fleurs-de-lis.  The  King  replied, 
*  Monsieur  le  maire,  I  take  the  flowers,  and 
give  you  back  the  keys.'  Then  the  sailors  and 
footmen  unharnessed  the  horses  from  the  car- 
riage, and  drew  him  themselves  into  the  town. 
The  excitement  of  the  crowd  was  impossible 
to  describe;  every  house  was  decorated  with 
blue  and  white  draperies  and  green  garlands, 
mottoes  and  white  flags,  covered  with  fleurs- 
de-lis. 

"  The  King  was  present  at  a  Te  Deum  sung 
in  Saint-Ferreol,  and  repaired,  still  drawn  by 
sailors,  to  the  Abbey  of  Saint-Pierre,  where 
he  was  to  lodge  the  night." 

The  evening  drew  slowly  in;  the  quaint, 
thick  lettering  of  the  old  book  was  becoming 
indistinct,  but  Aurelle  wanted  to  finish  the 
melancholy  history  of  these  inconstant  people. 
Skipping  the  triumphal  entry  of  Charles  X, 
he  came  to  the  July  insurrection. 

"  On  the  29th  of  July,  1830,  there  were  no 
newspapers;  but  letters  and  a  few  travellers 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      165 

arri^dng  from  Paris  announced  that  the  tri- 
colour flag  had  been  hoisted  on  the  towers  of 
^N'otre-Dame.  A  few  days  later  they  learnt 
that  the  fighting  had  stopped,  and  that  the 
heroic  population  of  the  capital  remained  in 
possession  of  all  their  outposts. 

"  Louis-Philippe,  accompanied  by  the 
Dukes  of  Orleans  and  Nemours,  soon  after 
passed  Estrees  on  his  way  to  Lille.  He  was 
received  under  a  triumphal  arch  by  the  Mayor 
and  Corporation.  Every  house  was  hung  with 
draperies  in  the  three  colours.  An  immense 
crowd  filled  the  air  with  their  acclamations. 
The  King  arrived  at  the  square  of  Saint- 
Ferreol,  where  the  National  Guard  and  sev- 
eral companies  of  douanicrs  awaited  him. 

"  The  various  corps  of  the  urban  guards  in 
their  best  clothes ;  the  strangeness  of  the  rural 
guards,  with  a  large  number  of  Napoleon's 
old  soldiers  in  their  ranks  with  their  original 
uniforms;  the  intrepid  seamen  of  Cayeux 
carrying  in  triumph  their  fishing  prizes,  ten 
old  tricolour  banners;  the  sailors,  with  their 
carbines,  bandoliers  and  cutlasses  in  their 
hands,  all  made  the  gayest  of  spectacles,  and 
the  picturesque  fete  delighted  the  King  and 
the  officers  of  his  staff." 


1 66     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

There  Jean  Valines'  book  coneluded,  but 
Aurelle,  while  watehing  the  garden  fading 
slowly  in  the  twilight,  amused  himself  by 
imagining  what  followed.  A  visit  from  La- 
martine,  no  doubt;  then  one  from  Napoleon 
III,  the  triumphal  arches  and  inscriptions,  and 
quite  lately,  perhaps,  Carnot  or  FalHeres  re- 
ceiving from  the  mayor,  in  the  square  of 
Saint-Ferreol,  the  assurance  of  the  unalter- 
able devotion  of  the  faithful  people  of  Estrees 
to  the  Republic.  Then  in  the  future:  un- 
known governors,  the  decorations,  perhaps  red, 
perhaps  blue,  until  the  day  when  some  bhnd 
god  would  come  and  crush  with  his  heel  this 
venerable  human  ant-hill. 

"  And  each  time,"  he  mused,  "  the  enthu- 
siasm is  sincere  and  the  vows  loyal,  and  these 
honest  tradesmen  rejoice  to  see  passing 
through  their  ancient  portals  the  new  rulers, 
in  the  choice  of  whom  they  have  had  no  part. 

"  Happy  province !  You  quietly  accept  the 
Empires  which  Paris  brings  forth  with  pain, 
and  the  downfall  of  a  government  means  no 
more  to  you  than  changing  the  words  of  a 
speech  or  the  flowers  on  a  silver  dish.  If  Dr. 
O'Grady  were  here  he  would  quote  Ecclesi- 
astes  to  me." 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      167 

He  tried  to  remember  it: 

"  "VMiat  profit  hath  a  man  of  all  his  labour 
which  he  taketh  under  the  sun? 

"  One  generation  passeth  away,  and  another 
generation  cometh;  but  the  earth  abideth  for 
ever. 

"T?he  thing  that  hath  been,  it  is  that  which 
shall  be;  and  that  which  is  done  is  that  which 
shall  be  done ;  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under 
the  sun." 

"  Aurelle,'*  said  Colonel  Musgrave,  who  had 
quietly  approached,  "  if  you  want  to  see  the 
bombardment  after  dinner,  go  up  to  the  top 
of  the  hill.  The  sky  is  all  lit  up.  We  attack 
to-morrow  morning." 

And  a  distant  muffled  thundering  floated  on 
the  calm  evening  air.  A  melancholy  and  an- 
cient peal  of  bells  rang  out  from  the  Spanish 
belfry  in  the  market-place.  The  first  stars 
twinkled  above  the  two  ironical  towers  of  the 
clmrch  of  Saint-Ferreol,  and  the  proud  old 
town  fell  asleep  to  the  famihar  sound  of  battle. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

IN  the  soft  evening  air  the  garden  drowses ; 
"  J'ai  du  bon  tabac  "  thinly  sounds  afar ; 
The  bells  are  chiming  slow,  and,  farther,  rouses 
The  distant,  instant,  deep-felt  voice  of  war. 

One  star  stands  out  upon  the  darkling  sky; 
Against  the  west  the  tree-tops  draw,  outlined, 
A  woodcut,  Japanese,  the  moon  behind; 
A  voice,  singing ;  dogs  bark ;  the  day  is  by. 

Life  seems  so  sweet,  so  calm  the  valley's  mood, 

That,  did  not  bitter  memories  undeceive. 

On  such  a  night  almost  could  one  believe 

This  false  world  was  of  God — that  God  was  good. 

But  even  now,  where  the  faint  hills  decline, 
Under  this  very  sky,  now  calm  as  when 
Its  peace  was  real — past  that  near  confine, 
The  gates  of  hell  yawn  wide  for  living  men. 


B8 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

COLONEL  Musgrave  was  drinking  his 
coffee  in  the  handsome  salon  of  the  mer- 
chant, Van  Mopez;  he  opened  a  pink 
official  telegram  and  read: 

"  Director  of  Commissariat  to  Colonel  Mus- 
grave. Marseilles  Indian  Depot  overcrowded 
meet  special  train  1000  goats  with  native 
goatherds  find  suitable  quarters  and  organize 
temporary  farm." 

"  Damn  the  goats !  "  he  said. 

His  job  being  to  feed  Austrahans,  he 
thought  it  hard  that  he  had  to  bear  in  addition 
the  consequences  of  the  religious  laws  of  the 
Hindoos.  But  nothing  troubled  Colonel 
Musgrave  long;  he  sent  for  his  interpreter. 

"  Aurelle,"  he  said,  "  I  am  expecting  a  thou- 
sand goats  this  evening ;  you  will  take  my  mo- 
tor and  scour  the  country.  I  must  have  a  suit- 
able piece  of  ground  in  five  hours  and  a  small 
building  for  the  shepherds.     If  the  owner  re- 

169 


I/O     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

fuses  to  let  you  hire  them,  you  will  comman- 
deer them.     Have  a  cigar?     Good-bye." 

Having  thus  disposed  of  this  first  anxiety, 
he  turned  to  his  adjutant. 

"  We  now  want  an  O.  C.  Goats! "  he  said. 
"  It  will  be  an  excellent  reason  for  getting 
rid  of  Captain  Cassell,  who  arrived  yesterday. 
Captain!  I  asked  him  what  he  did  in  peace- 
time— musical  critic  of  the  Morning  Leader! " 

So  that  is  Kow  Captain  Cassell,  musical 
critic,  was  promoted  goatherd-in-chief.  Au- 
relle  found  a  farmer's  wife  whose  husband  had 
been  called  up,  and  he  persuaded  her,  at  the 
cost  of  much  eloquence,  that  the  presence  of 
a  thousand  goats  in  her  orchards  would  be  the 
beginning  of  all  sorts  of  prosperity.  He  went 
in  the  evening  to  the  station  with  Cassell  to 
fetch  the  goats,  and  they  both  passed  through 
the  town  at  the  head  of  the  picturesque  flock, 
herded  by  ancient  Indians,  who  looked  exactly 
like  the  shepherds  in  the  Bible. 

Colonel  Musgrave  ordered  Cassell  to  send 
him  a  hundred  goats  per  day  for  the  front. 
After  the  fourth  day  Cassell  sent  over  a  short 
note  by  one  of  the  children  from  the  farm, 
announcing,  as  if  it  were  quite  a  natural  thing, 
that  his  flock  would  be  exhausted  the  next  day 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      171 

and  asking  for  another  contingent  of  goats. 
On  opening  this  extraordinary  missive,  the 
colonel  was  so  choked  with  rage  that  he  forgot 
to  proclaim,  according  to  custom,  that  Cassell 
was  a  damned  fool.  The  nmnbers  were  too 
simple  for  an  error  to  be  possible.  Cassell 
had  received  one  thousand  goats;  he  had  sent 
off  four  hundred,  he  ought  to  have  six  hun- 
dred left. 

The  colonel  ordered  his  car  and  commanded 
Aurelle  to  take  him  to  the  farm.  A  pretty, 
deeply  cut  road  led  them  there.  The  build- 
ings were  in  the  rustic,  solid  style  of  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century. 

"  It  is  a  charming  spot,"  said  the  interpre- 
ter, proud  of  his  find. 

"  Wliere  is  that  damned  fellow  Cassell?" 
said  the  colonel. 

They  found  him  in  the  kitchen  having  a 
French  lesson  from  the  farmer's  daughter. 
He  got  up  with  the  easy  grace  of  a  rural  gen- 
tleman whom  friends  from  town  had  surprised 
in  his  hermitage. 

"  Hullo,  colonel,"  he  said,  "  I  am  very  glad 
to  see  you." 

The  colonel  went  straight  to  the  point: 
"  ^Vhat's  this  damned  letter  that  you  sent 


172     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

me  this  morning?  You  received  a  thousand 
goats;  you  sent  me  foui*  hundred  of  them. 
Show  me  the  others." 

The  ground  behind  the  farm  sloped  gently 
down  to  a  wooded  valley;  it  was  planted  with 
apple-trees.  Near  a  stable,  sitting  in  the  mud, 
the  Hindoo  shepherds  tasted  prematurely  the 
joys  of  Nirvana. 

A  horrible  smell  arose  from  the  valley,  and, 
coming  nearer,  the  colonel  saw  about  a  hun- 
dred swollen  and  rotting  carcases  of  goats 
scattered  about  the  enclosure.  A  few  thin 
kids  dismally  gnawed  the  bark  of  the  apple- 
trees.  In  the  distance,  among  the  copses 
which  covered  the  other  side  of  the  valley^  one 
could  see  goats  which  had  escaped  browsing 
on  the  young  trees.  At  this  lamentable  sight, 
Aurelle  pitied  the  unfortunate  Cassell. 

The  colonel  maintained  a  hostile  and  dan- 
gerous silence. 

"  Isn't  it  beautiful,  colonel,"  said  the  musi- 
cal critic  with  soft  and  stilted  speech,  "  to  see 

all  those  little  white  spots  among  the  green? " 
•  •  •  •  • 

"  Could  not  one,"  suggested  Aurelle  on  the 
return  journey,  "  ask  the  advice  of  a  compe- 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble     173 

tent  man?  Perhaps  goats  cannot  stand  sleep- 
ing out  of  doors  in  this  damp  climate,  and  per- 
haps also  they  are  not  being  fed  properly." 

The  colonel  frowned. 

"  In  the  South  African  war,"  he  said  after 
a  silence,  "  we  used  a  large  number  of  oxen 
for  our  transport.  One  day  these  damned 
oxen  started  dying  by  hundreds,  and  no  one 
knew  why.  Great  excitement  at  headquarters. 
Some  general  found  an  expert,  who,  after  bor- 
ing the  whole  army  with  his  questions,  ended 
by  declaring  that  the  oxen  were  cold.  He  had 
noticed  the  same  sickness  in  the  north  of  India. 
There  they  protected  the  beasts  by  making 
them  wear  special  clothing.  Any  normal  in- 
dividual with  common  sense  could  see  that  the 
oxen  were  simply  overworked.  But  the  re- 
port followed  its  course,  and  arrived  at  gen- 
eral headquarters,  and  from  there  they  wired 
to  India  for  a  few  thousand  rugs  for  cattle. 

"  So  far  all  went  well,  the  oxen  died  as  fast 
as  ever,  the  well-paid  expert  had  a  damned 
good  time — up  to  the  arrival  of  the  rugs.  It 
is  very  easy  to  put  clothing  on  an  Indian  cow 
who  waits  patiently  with  lowered  head.  But 
an  African  bullock — you  try,  and  see  what  it's 


174     T^^  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

like.  After  several  trials,  our  drivers  refused 
to  do  it.  They  sent  for  the  expert  and  said 
to  him,  '  You  asked  for  rugs  for  the  beasts : 
here  they  are.  Show  us  how  to  put  them  on.' 
He  was  damned  lucky  to  get  out  of  hospital 
in  six  months." 

That  same  evening  another  pink  telegram 
arrived  from  the  Director  of  Commissariat: 

"  Goats  arrive  at  the  front  half  dead  pray 
take  steps  that  these  animals  may  have  some 
wish  to  live." 

Colonel  Musgrave  then  decided  to  telegraph 
to  Marseilles  and  ask  for  an  expert  on  goats. 

The  expert  arrived  two  days  later,  a  fat 
farmer  from  the  South,  sergeant  of  Territo- 
rials. With  the  help  of  Aurelle,  he  had  a  long 
conversation  with  the  colonel. 

"  There  is  one  thing,"  he  said,  "  that  goats 
cannot  get  on  without,  and  that  is  heat.  You 
must  make  very  low  wooden  sheds  for  them; 
without  any  openings;  let  them  stew  in  their 
own  juice,  and  they  will  be  happy! " 

He  remarked  to  the  interpreter  when  the 
colonel  had  gone,  "  Didn't  I  tell  them  a  good 
tale  about  their  goats,  he?  In  the  South  they 
live  out  in  the  open  and  are  as  well  as  you  or 
I.     But  let's  talk  seriously.     Couldn't  you  get 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      175 

your  English  to  manage  an  extension  of  leave 
for  me,  to  look  after  their  beasts,  he?  " 

They  had  begun  to  build  the  huts  described 
by  the  man  from  the  South,  when  the  Indian 
Corps  wrote  to  Colonel  Musgrave  that  they 
had  discovered  a  British  expert  whom  they 
were  sending  him. 

The  ncAv  seer  was  an  artillery  officer,  but 
goats  filled  his  life.  Aurelle,  who  looked  after 
him  a  good  deal,  found  out  that  he  regarded 
ever\i:hing  in  nature  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  goat.  A  Gothic  cathedral,  according  to 
him,  was  a  poor  shelter  for  goats;  not  enough 
air,  but  that  could  be  remedied  by  breaking  the 
windows. 

His  first  advice  was  to  mix  molasses  with 
the  fodder  which  was  given  to  the  animals. 
It  was  supposed  to  fatten  them  and  cure  them 
of  that  distinguished  melancholy  which  the 
Indian  troops  complained  of.  Large  bowls  of 
molasses  were  therefore  distributed  to  the 
Hindoo  shepherds.  The  goats  remained  thin 
and  sad,  ])ut  the  shepherds  grew  fat.  These 
results  surprised  the  expert. 

Then  he  was  shown  the  plans  of  the  huts. 
He  was  astounded. 

"  If  there  is  one  thing  in  the  world  that 


176     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

goats  cannot  do  without,"  he  said,  "it  is  air. 
They  must  have  very  lofty  stables  with  large 
windows." 

Colonel  Musgrave  asked  him  no  more.  He 
thanked  him  with  extreme  politeness,  then  sent 
for  Aurelle. 

"Now  listen  to  me,"  he  said:  "you  know 
Lieutenant  Honeysuckle,  the  goat  expert? 
Well,  I  never  wish  to  see  him  again.  I  order 
you  to  go  and  find  a  new  farm  with  him.  I 
forbid  you  to  find  it.  If  you  can  manage  to 
drown  him,  to  run  over  him  with  my  car,  or 
to  get  him  eaten  by  the  goats,  I  will  recom- 
mend you  for  the  Military  Cross.  If  he  re- 
appears here  before  my  huts  are  finished,  I 
will  have  you  shot.     Be  off !  " 

A  week  later  Lieutenant  Honeysuckle 
broke  his  leg  by  falling  off  his  horse  in  a  farm- 
yard. The  Territorial  from  Marseilles  was 
sent  back  to  his  corps.  As  for  the  goats,  one 
fine  day  they  stopped  dying,  and  no  one  ever 
found  out  why. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

ONE  morning,  Aurelle,  seeing  an  Eng- 
lish Staff  officer  come  into  his  office  in 
a  gold-peaked  hat  with  a  red  band,  was 
surprised  and  dehghted  to  recognize  Major 
Parker. 

"  Hullo,  sir!  I  am  glad  to  see  you  again! 
But  you  never  told  me  about  that " — and  he 
pointed  to  the  signs  of  authority. 

"  Well,"  said  the  major,  "  I  wrote  and  told 
you  that  Colonel  Bramble  had  been  made  a 
general.  He  now  commands  our  old  brigade 
and  I  am  his  brigade  major.  I  have  just  been 
down  to  the  Base  to  inspect  our  reinforce- 
ments, and  the  general  ordered  me  to  pick  you 
up  on  the  way  back  and  bring  you  in  to  lunch. 
He  will  send  you  back  this  evening.  Your 
colonel  is  quite  agreeable.  We  are  camped 
for  the  moment  next  to  the  village  where  the 
padre  was  killed;  the  general  thought  you 
would  like  to  see  his  grave." 

Two  hours  later  they  drew  near  the  front 

177 


178     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

and  Aurelle  recognized  the  familiar  land- 
marks: the  little  English  military  village  with 
a  policeman  holding  up  his  hand  at  every  cor- 
ner; the  large  market  town,  scarcely  bom- 
barded, but  having  here  and  there  a  roof  with 
its  beams  exposed;  the  road,  where  one  occa- 
sionally met  a  man  in  a  flat  steel  helmet  loaded 
like  a  mule;  the  village,  the  notice  boards, 
"  This  road  is  under  observation,"  and  sud- 
denly, a  carefully  camouflaged  battery  bark- 
ing out  of  a  thicket. 

But  Major  Parker,  who  had  seen  these 
things  every  day  for  three  j^ears,  discoursed  on 
one  of  his  favourite  themes: 

"  The  soldier,  Aurelle,  is  always  done  in  by 
the  tradesman  and  the  politician.  England 
will  pay  ten  thousand  a  year  to  a  lawyer  or  a 
banker,  but  when  she  has  splendid  fellows  like 
me  who  conquer  empires  and  keep  them  for 
her,  she  only  gives  them  just  enough  to  keep 
their  polo  ponies.     And  again — " 

"It  is  just  the  same  in  France — "  began 
Aurelle;  but  the  car  stopped  suddenly  oppo- 
site the  church  of  a  nightmare  village,  and  he 

recognized  H .     "  Poor  old  village,  how 

it  has  changed ! "  he  said. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      179 

The  church,  ashamed,  now  showed  its  pro- 
faned nave;  the  few  houses  still  standing  were 
merely  two  triangles  of  stone  sadly  facing  one 
another ;  and  the  high  building  of  the  weaving 
factory,  hit  by  a  shell  in  the  third  story,  was 
bent  over  like  a  poplar  in  a  storm. 

'*  Will  you  follow  me?"  said  the  major. 
"  We  have  had  to  put  the  H.Q.  of  the  brigade 
outside  the  village,  which  was  becoming  un- 
healthy. Walk  twenty  paces  behind  me;  the 
sausage  balloon  is  up  and  it's  no  good  show- 
ing them  the  road." 

Aurelle  followed  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
through  the  bushes,  and  suddenly  found  him- 
self face  to  face  with  General  Bramble  who, 
standing  at  the  entrance  to  a  dug-out,  was 
watching  a  suspicious  aeroplane. 

"  Ah,  messiou!  "  he  said.  "  That's  good!  " 
And  the  whole  of  his  rugged  red  face  lit  up 
with  a  kindly  smile. 

"  It  will  be  like  a  lunch  in  the  old  days," 
he  continued,  after  Aurelle  had  congratulated 
him.  "  I  sent  the  Staff  captain  out  with  the 
interpreter — for  we  have  another  interpreter 
now,  messiou — I  thought  you  would  not  like 
to  see  him  in  your  place.    But  he  has  not 


i8o     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

really  replaced  you,  messiou ;  and  I  telephoned 
to  the  Lennox  to  send  the  doctor  to  lunch 
with  us." 

He  showed  them  into  the  Mess  and  gave 
Major  Parker  a  few  details  of  what  had  been 
happening. 

"  Nothing  important ;  they  have  spoilt  the 
first  line  a  bit  at  E  17  A.  We  had  a  little 
strafe  last  night.  The  division  wanted  a  pris- 
oner, so  as  to  identify  the  Boche  reliefs — yes, 
yes,  that  was  all  right — the  Lennox  went  to 
fetch  him.  I  have  seen  the  man,  but  I  haven't 
had  their  written  report  yet." 

"  WTiat,  not  since  last  night?  "  said  Parker, 
"  "VVTiat  else  have  they  got  to  do?  " 

"  You  see,  messiou,"  said  the  general,  "  the 
good  old  times  are  over.  Parker  no  longer 
abuses  red  hats.  No  doubt  they  are  abusing 
him  in  that  little  wood  you  see  down  there." 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Parker,  "  that  one  must 
be  on  the  Staff  to  realize  the  importance  of 
work  done  there.  The  Staff  is  really  a  brain 
without  which  no  movement  of  the  regiment 
is  possible." 

"  You  hear,  messiou?  "  said-  the  general. 
"  It  is  no  longer  the  same;  it  will  never  be  the 
same  again.     The  padre  will  not  be  there  to 


•  The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      i8i 

talk  to  us  about  Scotland  and  to  abuse  bish- 
ops. And  I  have  no  longer  got  my  gramo- 
phone, messiou.  I  left  it  to  the  regiment  with 
all  my  records.  The  life  of  the  soldier  is  one 
of  great  hardship,  messiou,  but  we  had  a  jolly 
littje  Mess  with  the  Lennox,  hadn't  we?" 

The  doctor  appeared  at  the  entrance  to  the 
tent. 

"  Come  in,  O'Grady,  come  in.  Late  as 
usual;  there  is  no  creature  so  wicked  and  so 
dense  as  you." 

The  lunch  was  very  like  those  of  the  good 
old  times — for  there  were  already  good  old 
times  in  this  War,  which  was  no  longer  in  the 
flower  of  its  youth — the  orderlies  handed 
boiled  potatoes  and  mutton  with  mint  sauce, 
and  Aurelle  had  a  friendly  httle  discussion 
with  the  doctor. 

"  ^¥hen  do  you  think  war  will  be  finished, 
Aurelle?"  said  the  doctor. 

"  \VIien  we  win,"  cut  in  the  general. 

But  the  doctor  meant  the  League  of  Na- 
tions: he  did  not  believe  in  a  final  war. 

"  It  is  a  fairly  consistent  law  of  humanity," 
he  said,  "  that  men  spend  about  half  their  lives 
at  war.  A  Frenchman,  called  Lapouge,  cal- 
culated that  from  the  year  1100  to  the  year 


1 82     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

1.500,  England  had  been  207  j^ears  at  war, 
and  212  years  from  1500  to  1900.  In  France 
the  corresponding  figures  would  be  192  and 
181  years." 

"  That  is  very  interesting,"  said  the  general. 

"  According  to  that  same  man  Lapouge, 
nineteen  million  men  are  killed  in  war  every 
centmy.  Their  blood  would  fill  three  million 
barrels  of  180  litres  each,  and  would  feed  a 
fountain  of  blood  running  700  litres  an  hour 
from  the  beginning  of  history." 

"  Ugh!  "  said  the  general. 

"  All  that  does  not  prove,  doctor,"  said 
Aurelle,  "  that  your  fountain  will  go  on  run- 
ning. For  many  centuries  murder  has  been 
an  institution,  and  nevertheless  courts  of  jus- 
tice have  been  established." 

"  Murder,"  said  the  doctor,  "  never  appears 
to  have  been  an  honoured  institution  among 
primitive  peoples,  Cain  had  no  reason  to  care 
for  the  justice  of  his  country,  if  I  mistake  not. 
Besides,  law  courts  have  not  suppressed  mur- 
derers. They  punish  them,  which  is  not  the 
same  thing.  A  certain  number  of  interna- 
tional conflicts  might  be  settled  by  civil  tribu- 
nals, but  there  will  always  be  wars  of  passion." 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      183 

"Have  you  read  'The  Great  Illusion'?" 
said  Aurelle. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  major,  "  it's  a  misleading 
book.  It  pretends  to  show  that  war  is  use- 
less, because  it  is  not  profitable.  We  know 
that  very  well,  but  who  fights  for  profit? 
England  did  not  take  part  ir  this  war  to  con- 
quer, but  to  defend  her  honour.  As  for  be- 
lieving that  Democracies  would  be  pacific, 
that's  nonsense.  A  nation  worthy  of  the  name 
is  even  more  susceptible  than  a  monarch.  The 
Royal  Era  was  the  age  of  gold,  preceding  the 
Iron  Age  of  the  people." 

"  There's  an  argument  just  like  the  old 
days,"  said  the  general.  "  Both  are  right, 
both  are  wrong.  That's  capital!  Now,  doc- 
tor, tell  me  the  story  about  your  going  on 
leave  and  I  shall  be  perfectly  happy." 

After  lunch,  they  all  four  went  to  see  the 
padre's  grave.  It  was  in  a  little  cemetery  sur- 
rounded by  weeds ;  the  ground  broken  up  here 
and  there  by  recent  shell-holes.  The  padre 
lay  between  two  lieutenants  of  twenty.  Corn- 
flowers and  other  wild  plants  had  spread  a 
living  mantle  over  all  three  graves. 

"  After  the  war,"  said  General  Bramble,  "  if 


184     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

I  am  still  alive,  I  shall  have  a  stone  carved 
with  '  Here  lies  a  soldier  and  a  sportsman.' 
That  will  please  him." 

The  other  three  remained  silent,  restraining 
their  emotion  with  difficulty.  Am-elle  seemed 
to  hear,  in  the  murmuring  summer  air,  the  un- 
dying strains  of  "  Destiny  Waltz  "  and  saw 
the  padre  setting  out  once  more  on  horseback, 
his  pockets  bulging  with  hymn-books  and  ciga- 
rettes for  the  men.  The  doctor  meditated: 
"  *  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together, 
there  I  will  be  in  the  midst  of  them.'  What  a 
profound  and  true  saying!  And  how  the  re- 
lio-ion  of  the  dead  still  lives." 

"  Come,"  said  the  general,  "  we  must  go, 
the  Boche  sausage  is  up  in  the  air,  and  we  are 
four;  it  is  too  many.  They  tolerate  two,  but 
we  must  not  abuse  their  courtesy.  I  am  going 
on  up  to  the  trenches.  You,  Parker,  will  take 
Aurelle  back,  and  if  you  want  to  go  with  them, 
doctor,  I  will  tell  your  colonel  that  I  have 
given  you  leave  for  the  afternoon." 

The  three  friends  passed  slowly  across  the 
silent  plains,  which  only  a  few  months  before 
had  been  the  formidable  battlefield  of  the 
Somme.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  there 
were  low,   undulating  hillocks   covered   with 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      185 

thick,  coarse  grass,  groups  of  mutilated  tree- 
trunks  marking  the  place  of  the  famous  wood, 
and  milUons  of  poppies  made  these  dead  fields 
glow  with  a  warm  and  coppery  light.  A  few 
tenacious  rose-trees,  with  lovely  fading  roses, 
had  remained  alive  in  this  wilderness,  beneath 
which  slept  the  dead.  Here  and  there  posts, 
bearing  painted  notices,  like  those  on  a  sta- 
tion platform,  recalled  villages  unknown  yes- 
terday, but  now  ranking  with  those  of  Mara- 
thon or  Rivoli:  Contalmaison,  Martinpuich, 
Thiepval. 

"  I  hope,"  said  Aurelle,  looking  at  the  in- 
numerable little  crosses,  here  grouped  together 
as  in  cemeteries,  there  isolated,  "  that  this 
ground  will  be  consecrated  to  the  dead  who 
won  it,  and  that  this  country  will  be  kept  as 
an  immense  rustic  cemetery,  where  children 
may  come  to  learn  the  story  of  heroes." 

"What  an  idea!"  said  the  doctor.  "No 
doubt  the  graves  will  be  respected;  but  they 
will  have  good  crops  all  round  them  in  two 
years'  time.  The  land  is  too  rich  to  remain 
widowed;  look  at  that  superb  lot  of  corn- 
flowers on  those  half -healed  scars." 

And  truly,  a  little  further  on,  some  of  the 
^ullages  seemed,  like  convalescents,  to  be  tast- 


1 86     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

ing  the  joy  of  life  once  more.  Shop  windows 
crowded  with  English  goods  in  many-colom^ed 
packets  brightened  up  the  ruined  houses.  As 
they  passed  through  a  straggling  village  of 
Spanish  aspect  the  doctor  resumed: 

"  Yes,  this  is  a  marvellous  land.  Every  na- 
tion in  Europe  has  conquered  it  in  turn;  it 
has  defeated  its  conqueror  every  time." 

"  Tf  we  go  a  little  out  of  the  way,"  said 
Parker,  "  we  could  visit  the  battlefield  of 
Crecy;  it  would  interest  me.  I  hope  you  are 
not  annoyed  with  us,  Aurelle,  for  having 
beaten  Philippe  de  Valois?  Your  military 
history  is  too  glorious  for  you  to  have  any 
resentment  for  events  which  took  place  so  long 
ago." 

"  My  oldest  resentments  do  not  last  six  hun- 
dred years,"  said  Aurelle.  "  Crecy  was  an 
honourably-contested  match;  we  can  shake 
hands  over  it." 

The  chauffeur  was  told  to  turn  to  the  west, 
and  they  arrived  on  the  site  of  Crecy  by  the 
same  lower  road  taken  by  Philippe's  army. 

"  The  English,"  said  Parker,  "  were  drawn 
up  on  the  hill  facing  us,  their  right  towards 
Crecy,  their  left  at  Vadicourt,  that  little  vil- 
lage you  see  down  there.     They  were  about 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      187 

thirty  thousand;  there  were  a  hundred  thou- 
sand French.  The  latter  appeared  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  immediately 
there  was  a  violent  thunderstorm." 

"  I  observe,"  said  the  doctor,  "  that  the 
heavens  thought  it  fumiy  to  water  an  offen- 
sive even  in  those  days." 

Parker  explained  the  disposition  of  the  two 
armies,  and  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  battle. 
Aurelle,  who  was  not  listening,  admired  the 
woods,  the  quiet  villages,  the  yellowing  grass 
of  the  fields,  and  saw  in  imagination  swarms 
of  men  and  horses  riding  up  to  the  assault  of 
this  peaceful  hill. 

"  Finalh%"  concluded  the  major,  "  when  the 
King  of  France  and  his  army  had  left  the  field 
of  battle,  Edward  invited  the  principal  corps 
commanders  to  dinner,  and  they  all  ate  and 
drank  with  great  rejoicings  because  of  the 
good  luck  ^v'hicll  had  befallen  them." 

"  How  very  English,  that  invitation  to  dine 
at  the  King's  Mess,"  said  Aurelle. 

"  Then,"  continued  Parker,  "  he  ordered 
one  Renaud  de  Ghehoben  to  take  all  the 
knights  and  clerks  who  knew  heraldry — " 

"  The  units,"  said  the  doctor,  "  will  render  to 
His  Majesty's  H.Q.,  not  later  than  this  eve- 


1 88     The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble 

ning,  a  nominal  roll  of  all  barons  who  have 
passed  their  heraldry  test." 

"  And  commanded  them  to  count  the  dead, 
and  to  write  down  the  names  of  all  the  loiights 
whom  they  could  recognize." 

"  The  adjutant-general  will  compile  a  re- 
turn of  noble  persons  stating  who  have  been 
killed,  including  their  rank,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  Renaud  found  eleven  princes,  thirteen 
hundred  knights  and  sixteen  thousand  foot 
soldiers." 

HeavA^  black  clouds  were  showing  up 
against  the  brilliant  sunshine:  a  storm  was 
coming  over  the  hill.  By  the  valley  of 
Renaud's  clerks,  they  climbed  up  on  to  the 
summit  and  Parker  looked  for  the  tower  from 
which  Edward  had  watched  the  battle. 

"  I  thought,"  he  said,  "  that  it  had  been 
made  into  a  mill,  but  I  don't  see  one  on  the 
horizon." 

Aurelle,  noticing  a  few  old  peasants,  helped 
by  children,  cutting  corn  in  the  next  field, 
went  up  to  them  and  asked  them  where  the 
tower  was. 

"  The  tower?  There  is  no  tower  in  these 
parts,"  one  of  them  said,  "  nor  mill  either." 

"  Perhaps  we  are  wrong,"  said  the  major. 


The  Silence  of  Colonel  Bramble      189 
Ask  him  if  this  is  really  where  the  battle 


was. 

"The  battle?"  replied  the  old  man. 
"WTiat  battle?" 

And  the  people  of  Crecy  turned  back  to 
their  work,  binding  into  neat  sheaves  the  corn 
of  this  invincible  land. 


THE   END 


APPENDIX 

'*"¥"      A  Mort  passe;  le  Destin  chante; 
I  Vite,  oublie-moi. 

Tes  robes  noires  sont  charmantes ; 
Mets-les  six  mois. 

Garde-toi  de  venir  en  pleurs 

M'offrir  des  roses ; 
Aux  vivants  reserve  tes  fleurs 

Et  toutes  choses. 

Ne  me  plains  pas,  je  dormirai 

Sans  barcaroles, 
Et  de  mon  corps  je  nourrirai 

Des  herbes  folks.  .  .  . 

Mais  si,  par  quelque  soir  d'automne 

Ou  de  brouillard. 
Pour  ton  visage  de  madone 

Tu  veux  le  fard 

De  cet  air  de  melancolie 

Que  j'aimais  tant, 
Alors  oublie  que  tu  m'oublies 

Pour  un  instant." 

191 


Appendix 


LETTRE  D'AURELLE 

Quelque  part  en  France. 

LES  soldats  passent  en  cliantant : 
"  Mets  tes  soucis  dans  ta  musette."  * 
II  pleut,  il  vente,  il  fait  un  temps 
A  ne  pas  suivre,  une  grisette. 
Les  soldats  passent  en  chantant, 
Moi,  je  fais  des  vers  pour  Josette; 
Les  soldats  passent  en  chantant: 
"  Mets  tes  soucis  dans  ta  musette." 

Un  planton  va  dans  un  instant 
M'apporter  de  vieilles  gazettes : 
Vieux  discours  de  vieux  cliarlatans, 
*'  Mets  tes  soucis  dans  ta  musette." 
Nous  passons  nos  plus  beaux  printemps 
A  ces  royales  amusettes ; 
Les  soldats  passent  en  chantant : 
"  Mets  tes  soucis  dans  ta  musette." 

La  pluie,  sur  les  ^^tres  battant 
Orchestre,  comme  une  mazette, 
Quelque  prelude  de  Tristan, 

"  Pack  up  your  troubles  in  your  old  kit-bag." 

192 


Appendix 

"  Mets  tes  soucis  dans  ta  musette." 
Demain  sans  doute  un  percutant 
iVI'enverra  faire  la  causette 
Aux  petits  soupers  de  Satan. 
"  Mets  tes  soucis  dans  ta  musette." 
Les  soldats  passent  en  chantant. 


193 


Appendix 


DANS  voire  salon  directolre 
(Bleu  lavande  et  jaune  citron) 
De  vieux  fauteuils  voisineront 
Dans  un  st3de  contradictoire 
Avec  un  divan  sans  histoire 
(Bleu  lavande  et  jaune  citron). 

A  des  merveilleuses  notoires 
(Bleu  lavande  et  jaune  citron) 
Des  muscadins  a  cinq  chevrons 
Diront  la  prochaine  victoire, 
En  des  domains  ostentatoires 
(Bleu  lavande  et  jaune  citron). 

Les  niurs  nus  comme  un  mur  d'eglise 
(Bleu  lavande  et  jaune  citron) 
Quelque  temps  encore  attendront 
Qu'un  premier  consul  brutalise 
Leur  calme  et  notre  Directoire 
De  son  visage  peremptoire 
(CEil  bleu  lavande  et  teint  citron). 


194» 


Appendix 


PUISQUE  le  mauvais  temps  vous  condamne  h 
la  chambre, 
Puisque  vous   meprisez  desormais  les   romans, 
Puisque  pour  mon  bonheur  vous  n'avez  pas  d'araant, 
Et  puisque  ce  mois  d'aout  s'obstine  impunement 
A  jouer  les  decembre. 

Je  griffonne  pour  vous  ces  vers  sans  queue  ni  tete, 
Sans  rime,  ou  peu  s'en  faut,  en  tout  cas  sans  raison, 
Que  j'intitulerai  dans  mes  oeuvres  completes: 
"  Discours  pour  une  amie  qui  garde  la  maison 
Par  un  jour  de  tempete.'* 

Je  ne  sais  la-dessus  si  nous  sentons  de  meme, 
Mais  quand  je  suis  ainsi  reveur  et  paresseux, 
Quand  il  pleut  dans  mon  coeur  comme  il  pleut  dans— 


196 


Appendix 


O 


>s. 


MURE  et  charmante  epiciere 
Au  corsage  gonfle, 
Et  vous,  jolie  garde-barriere, 
Aux  bras  nus  et  muscles, 


Institutrice  aux  yeux  mi-clos, 

Aux  robes  citadines, 
Vous  qui  possediez  un  piano 

Et  de  longues  mains  fines, 

Boulangere  a  qui  les  ecus 

Ne  coutaient  certes  guere, 

Car  vous  vous  mettiez  au-dessus 
Des  prejug^s  vulgaires, 

Ah!  que  vos  charmes  villageois 
Nous  furent  done  utiles 

Pour  vaincre  le  cafard  sournois 
De  ces  journees  hostiles! 

Accoudes  a  votre  comptoir 

Et  parlant  pour  nous-memes. 

Nous  vous  disions  nos  longs  espoirs 
Et  nos  vastes  problemes. 


196 


Appendix 

Vous  n'avez  pas  souvent  compris, 
Mais  soyez  bien  tranquilles, 

Nos  belles  amies  de  Paris 
Ne  sont  pas  plus  habiles. 

L'homme  croit  toujours  emouvoir 
La  femme  qu'il  desire: 

Elle  n'est  pour  lui  qu'un  miroir 
Dans  lequel  il  s'admire, 

Et  quand  Margot,  Pair  resigne, 

Subit  nos  hypotheses, 
Elle  vaut  bien  la  Sevigne, 

Pourvu  qu'elle  se  taise. 


197 


Appendix 


DEMAIN,  depart  de  k  brigade: 
La  cornemuse  et  le  tambour 
Donneront  la  derniere  aubade 
A  ces  fugitives  amours. 

Les  montagnards  aux  beaux  genoux, 
Qui  mimaient  la  danse  du  sable 
Avec  des  chants  graves  et  doux 
Vont  danser  la  ronde  du  Diable. 

La  Victoire,  un  jour,  les  cherchant, 
Les  trouvera  trois  pieds  sous  terre, 
Mais  par  ces  fermes  et  ces  champs 
Flottera  leur  ombre  legere. 

Et  dans  nos  villages  des  Flandres  .  •  • 


198 


Appendix 


CHANSON  DU   COMTE  DE  DORSET 
(1665) 

EN  cet  instant,  belles  personnes, 
Un  adolescent  bien  poudre 
A  coup  sur  pres  de  vous  fredonne 
La  chanson  que  vous  adorez. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

En  caressant  ses  cheveux  lisses 
Avec  des  gestes  manieres, 
H  vous  fait  des  yeux  en  coulisse 
Et  des  regards  enanioures. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

La  vague  cependant  balance 
Notre  vieux  bateau  delabre, 
Le  vent  qui  siffle  avec  violence 
Chante  notre  Miserere. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

En  vain,  pour  conjurer  I'image 
D'un  sort,  helas!    trop  assur^ 
Accroches  a  nos  bastingages, 
Nous  fredonnons  desesperes. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 
199 


Appendix 

Pousses  vers  les  sombres  royaumes 
Par  votre  oubli  premature, 
Le  plus  lamentable  des  psaumes 
Chante  en  notre  coeur  ulcere: 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Quoi?     Votre  ame  etait  si  petite 
Et  votre  amour  si  mesure? 
Vous  avez  oublie  si  vite 
Que  ce  fut  notre  air  prefere, 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

En  semblable  cas,  les  Romaines 
Restaient  pres  du  foyer  sacre 
Et  chantaient  en  filant  la  laine 
Des  hymnes  aux  dieux  ignores. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Ne  pouvez-vous  faire  comme  elles? 
Oh!    dites  que  vous  le  voudrez 
Et  qu'en  des  amours  eternelles 
Pour  nous  seuls  vous  vous  garderez. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

Car  si  vous  etes  inconstantes 
Comme  ces  flots  desempares, 
Craignez  qu'un  jour  le  doux  andante 
'Ne  devienne  un  Dies  ir(B. 
Fa,  do,  sol,  re. 

200 


Appendix 


Tu  Pas  dit,  6  Pascal,  le  nez  de  Cleopatre, 

S'il  eut  ete  plus  court  .  .  .  nous  n'en  serious  pas  la. 


Croyez  pas  que  je  moralise,  4 

Si  je  vous  envoie  ces  bobards, 

C'est  que  notre  mess  analyse 

Ce  soir  la  question  du  hasard  .  .  , 


Pourquoi  me  fermes-tu  les  yeux  4 

Lorsque  tu  me  baises  la  bouche? 


201 


Appendix 


L 


E    jardin    provincial    s'endort    dans    le    soir 
tendre ; 


Un    violon    d'enfant    joue    "  J'ai    du    bon 
tabac  " ; 
Les  cloches  lentement  tintent;  I'on  pent  entendre 
Vibrer  dans  Pair  lointain  le  bruit  sourd  des  combats. 

Une  etoile  s'allume  en  un  ciel  qui  grisaille; 

Un  arbre  aux  fins  rameaux  sur  I'occident  dessine 

Un  croquis  japonais  que  la  lune  termine; 

Une  voix  chante;  un  chien  aboie;  I'ombre  tressaille. 

La  vie  semble  si  douce  en  ce  calme  vallon 
Que  si  I'homme  n'avait,  helas !   trop  de  memoire, 
Par  un  tel  soir  paisible  il  pourrait  presque  croire 
Que  ce  monde  menteur  est  I'oeuvre  d'un  Dieu  bon. 

Cependant,  par  dela  ces  coUines  flexibles 

Et  sous  ce  meme  ciel  au  calme  decevant, 

A  quelques  lieues  d'ici,  par  ce  beau  soir  paisible 

Les  portes  de  Penfer  s'ouvrent  pour  des  vivants. 


202 


•0^ 


^1^ 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


-h 


AA      000  256  058    9 


